


You're Banging My Bedroom Wall

by AngelQueen87



Category: Arrow (TV 2012)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Neighbors, Angst and Fluff and Smut, F/M, Family Feels, Minor Laurel Lance/Tommy Merlyn, Romance, Some Humor
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-08-02
Updated: 2017-04-21
Packaged: 2018-07-28 23:37:41
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 32
Words: 34,033
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7661629
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AngelQueen87/pseuds/AngelQueen87
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Every night that Felicity has lived in her new apartment she has had the pleasure of experiencing secondhand her neighbor's nightly escapades in the bedroom through the rocking and swaying of her own bed. Tensions will rise, that is a promise.</p><p>Crossposted on Fanfiction.net</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. The First Night

_BANG! BANG! BANG!_

Felicity shot up in bed, her heart in her throat, and promptly fell on the floor. She quickly scrambled to grab her glasses from her bedside table and shoved them on. A glance at the glowing numbers on her alarm clock revealed that it was 1:06 AM.

Bemused, she watched as her bed rocked and moved further and further away from the wall it had been previously pressed up against. Every inch that the bed moved was punctuated by the continuous _BANG! BANG! BANG!_ that originated from the other side of wall, the very same wall that she shared with her neighbor.

This had been the first night that Felicity had stayed in her new apartment. She hadn’t met any of her neighbors when she had moved in except for Roy, the college kid with a bad temper, a rebel without a cause attitude, and a devil-may-care smirk that lived down the hall from her. When she told him what apartment she had just moved into, he busted up laughing. All Roy could do was point between her and the apartment next to hers and laugh, barely stringing together a coherent sentence. The only thing that she was able to get out of him was that she was going to have fun living there.

She didn’t understand what he had meant by that but now it was obvious.

As Felicity continued to stare at in disbelief at the wall, the banging started to speed up in tempo and was now accompanied by the sounds of two people in the throes of passion.

“Yes! Yes, right there!” a woman’s voice screamed followed by a moan.

The moans were followed by a masculine voice saying, “You like that, huh?”

_BANG! BANG! BANG! BANG!_

The woman moaned again and again and again and Felicity buried her head in her hands, silently cursing Roy Harper and whoever the hell lived on the other side of her bedroom wall.

After what seemed like a lifetime there was one last guttural groan of, _“Laurel!”_ followed by one last _BANG!_ against her bedroom wall and then finally silence.

Felicity glared at the wall for a good ten minutes before pushing her bed back flush against the wall and crawling beneath her sheets. Hopefully she would be able to get a few more hours sleep in before she had to get up.

* * *

When Felicity next woke, she estimated that she had slept for maybe just under an hour before it started again.

_BANG! BANG! BANG!_

With an irritated huff of annoyance as her bed once again started to rock and move, she grabbed her comforter and slid out of bed. Muttering under her breath about inconsiderate, wall-banging neighbors, Felicity left her bedroom and went out to her living room. She flopped down onto the couch and went back to sleep.

The next time she woke the sun was up and shining cheerily in the sky. On any other morning Felicity would have been happy to see the sun but not today. She felt sleep deprived and her back felt like crap after sleeping on the couch.

Felicity rubbed the sleep out of her eyes and decided to forgo her morning run, instead opting to pour herself a big bowl of her favorite super sugary cereal. She sat at the breakfast bar and stared at the leprechaun promising that the little marshmallows were “magically delicious” on the box as she ate, hoping that looking at his happy face would erase the memory of what had happened the night before.

But that was an epic fail.

“I’m sorry, Lucky,” she said, glaring at the cartoon leprechaun, “but you’re not helping me forget.” She shoved the box of cereal over the edge of the counter and continued eating.


	2. And Every Night Afterwards

Felicity frowned at her friend from across the table at the coffee house in downtown Starling City.

It was just after six and Felicity had just gotten out of work. She had just wanted to go home and curl up in bed and catch a few hours of sleep before she had to migrate to her couch for the rest of the night and watch movies and catch up on missed TV shows on either her laptop or tablet until she fell asleep again.

But her plans had been derailed when she went out to the parking garage of Queen Consolidated, where she worked as one of the many IT Specialists, and found her best friend Sara Lance leaning against her car. One look at her face and Felicity knew that she wouldn’t be going home any time soon.

Sara threw her head back and laughed her head off like Felicity had just babbled her way into deep embarrassment fueled by sexual innuendos and pointless tangents. People turned to look at the two blondes with mild irritation and bemusement and Felicity kicked Sara in the shin underneath the table.

“Stop laughing. This isn’t funny, Sara,” she hissed across the table.

Sara wiped at the tears beneath her eyes and shook her head, still chuckling. “Oh yes it is, Smoak. That is some funny shit right there.”

Felicity rolled her eyes and leaned back in her seat. “It really isn’t, Sara. Every night! Every single fucking night the guy brings home a new woman and they… _do it_. Just on the other side of my bedroom wall! And that–that red-hoodie-wearing _freak_ Roy didn’t even bother to warm me! Some friend he’s turning out to be,” Felicity vented. “I don’t even sleep at night anymore. Do you know how many times I’ve fallen asleep at work since I moved into that apartment? Twelve, Sara, _twelve freaking times_! Oh, and one of those times was during a department meeting with Robert Queen. You know, the man whose _name_ is on the building?”

Sara’s eyes widened in shocked amazement. “A new girl every night since you moved in?” She paused to count on her fingers. “Wow, Felicity, that’s six nights and six girls!”

She rolled her eyes to herself, unsurprised. “That’s all you’ve gotten out of this? That my manwhore of a neighbor has sexed up six different girls in as many nights?”

“Have you seen him? Is he as hot and yummy and I think he is?” Sara questioned, completely ignoring her. “Do you think he would be up for a roll in the hay with me?”

Felicity snorted at the last one. “No. I don’t know. And I don’t think you want to go there,” she answered, wrapping her hands around her mug.

“Why not?” she pouted.

“Because the first girl he did was Laurel.”

Sara’s eyes widened to the size of CDs and she spit her mouthful of coffee back into her mug before leaning across the table to look Felicity in the eye. “No way. _Laurel_. My uptight, bitch of a sister. We _are_ talking about Miss I-want-to-get-married-and-have-two-point-five-kids-and-still-be-the-DA? Miss I-want-to-be-Missus-Tommy-Merlyn? _That_ Laurel?” Felicity bit back a smirk and nodded. “Fuck. You’re right, I don’t want to fuck the same guy my sister cheated on her boyfriend with.”

“That’s what I thought.”

Sara suddenly smiled.

Felicity didn’t like that smile. It was usually a precursor for a really bad time filled with a lot of regrets. Like when the two of them had gone to Vegas a few years back. Felicity had initially gone to visit her mom for the weekend and then it had suddenly turned into a weekend partying on the strip with Sara since her mom had to work both days. Long story short, Felicity woke up with a massive hangover and a tattoo that she had no recollection of ever getting but was sure was all Sara’s idea.

“No. Whatever it is that is going through that head of yours, the answer is no.”

Sara pouted. “Oh, come on. You haven’t even heard what I was going to say.”

“I said no,” Felicity repeated, feeling her resolve weaken.

She was already regretting it.


	3. The First Night Redux

_BANG! BANG! BANG!_

Felicity shot up from her bed the instant that the banging started and groaned with barely contained anger. She twisted around and glared at the wall separating the two apartments.

A moan from beside her tore her gaze from the wall and she turned to look at Sara curled up on the other side of the bed. Sara moaned again and buried her head underneath a pillow. “What the fuck is that? Don’t people know that we’re trying to sleep here?”

_BANG! BANG! BANG!_

The bed began to rock and move away from the wall and in the back of her mind Felicity wondered why she even bothered to push it back in the first place.

“Make it stop!” Sara moaned. “I’m going to throw up.”

Felicity threw her a sharp glare. “Don’t you dare, Sara Lance! I told you not to drink so much at the club.”

“What the hell is going on? Starling doesn’t have earthquakes.”

“It’s the manwhore,” Felicity snapped, her voice clipped. “He’s banging some girl on the other side of this wall.”

Unable to take the banging anymore, she sat up and started to pound her fist on the wall. “Hey! There are people who are actually trying to sleep over here, you know. And we would appreciate it if you would take your banging somewhere the _fuck_ else. Like right now!”

Immediately there was silence.

Blissful, beautiful silence.

“Thank you,” Felicity sighed, settling back underneath the covers and drifting to sleep.

But perhaps she had spoken too soon.

_BANG! BANG! BANG! BANG! BANG! BANG! BANG!_

* * *

“Roy!” Felicity yelled, pounding her fist on his door. “Roy Harper! Open up this door!”

Sara leaned heavily against her shoulder, half asleep and unwilling to go back to the apartment. “Your neighbor’s a douche.”

Just when Felicity was about to drift back to sleep the guy had somehow turned her request for silence into a challenge and started to bang the frame of his bed harder and faster against the wall making whoever he was sexing up this time moan and scream even louder. All of the extra noise and swaying of her bed had increased Sara’s nausea and headache. Sara refused to stay in her bed and had no intentions of sleeping on the couch, which was why they were now knocking on Roy’s door.

She sighed and lightly patted her friend’s head. “I know,” she cooed, “but he’ll be a dead douche if I ever meet him.”

There was shuffling on the other side of the door followed by a thud and a muffled curse before the door suddenly swung open and a bleary eyed Roy stood on the other side. “What do you want, Blondie? It’s two in the morning,” he growled at her.

Felicity shifted Sara’s weight against her shoulder and stared the twenty-year-old down over the edge of her glasses. “Sara’s sick and needs to sleep in a bed.”

“Really? And why can’t Lance sleep in yours?” He smirked knowingly, folding his arms across his chest and leaning casually against the doorjamb.

Sara suddenly lurched away from her and grabbed Roy by the collar of his shirt. She pulled him close and he suddenly had that deer in headlights look. “Harper, you and I have worked together for how long now? Six months?” He quickly nodded his head. “And from those six months I would like to say that you and I are good friends now, and from what Felicity has told me you’re on your way to becoming good friends with her too. Right now I’m sporting a massive headache from all the banging and feel like I’m about to throw up. I would like to sleep in a bed that has no chance of moving and in a room that isn’t having its walls banged by the neighbors fucking.”

She fisted his shirt tighter and shook him a little, the sharp look in her eyes menacing. “If you know what’s good for you, Roy, you will give me your bed for the night because if I stand here any longer I _will_ puke on you right here, right now.”

“She means it. When Sara’s sick like this, she can basically throw up on demand,” Felicity interjected adjusting her glasses.

Roy audibly gulped and nodded. “Yeah. Okay, yeah, you can stay here. Both of you,” he added, glancing at Felicity.

Sara released him and lightly patted his cheek, making him flinch. “Thank you, Roy. You’re such a good friend.”


	4. On the Run

The next morning Felicity quickly jotted a note on the little dry erase board on Roy’s refrigerator telling them where she had gone and slipped back into her apartment. She quickly changed into her running clothes, pulled her hair up into a ponytail and after clipping her iPod on, exited her apartment and got on the elevator.

Just as the doors were about to shut, she heard someone call out, “Hey wait! Hold the door.” Felicity quickly stuck her hand out and a man slipped through the doors and stepped in next to her.

He glanced at her out of the corner of his eye and shot her a quick smile. “Thanks.”

“No problem,” she stammered back, feeling her cheeks redden. Felicity gave him what she hoped passed for a smile and quickly looked away.

The man was hot. He was the most attractive man Felicity had ever seen her entire life and she had seen her fair share of men when she used to live in Vegas with her mom.

Felicity peaked at him from the corner of her eyes and subtly checked him out.

He had short cropped blond hair and the bluest eyes she had ever seen. His lips were pink and soft and Felicity wondered what it would be like to kiss them. Next her eyes were drawn to the stubble on his face and she imagined what it would feel like to have the rough, coarse hair rubbing against the soft, sensitive skin of her thighs.

A moan slipped through her lips at the thought. It must have been louder than she thought because she suddenly found curious, but shocked, blue eyes staring at her.

“Are you okay?” he asked.

Felicity met his gaze, cheeks blazing, and quickly nodded her head. “Yeah. Yeah, I’m fine,” she said, suddenly hyperaware of how close they were standing next to each other in the elevator.

The doors conveniently opened just then and Felicity bolted.

* * *

Once she rounded the corner from her building Felicity slipped her earbuds on and pressed play to start her playlist. She stood there for a beat longer to gather her bearings and after a moment she began her morning run.

The pounding of her feet against the pavement matched the pulsing beats of the music. It wasn’t long before her encounter in the elevator was forgotten and the only thing Felicity was focused on was putting one foot in front of the other and following the now familiar path that she took every morning.

After some time she suddenly became aware of someone running next to her. Felicity turned to look at her side and faltered. She caught and righted herself at the last second before she went sprawling across the pavement.

It was the guy from the elevator!

Felicity faced forward again and picked up her pace, but he was right there with her stride for stride. It was like that for the rest of her run. He stayed with her the entire time. Twice Felicity tried to lose him in the park but he somehow found her. Both times the guy just chuckled and shook his head, saying nothing.

Half an hour later they had gotten back to their building and were walking side by side. Felicity had no idea how to shake the guy. She was still so embarrassed that he had heard her moan.

As they were walking up the stairs, Felicity planned to bolt for the stairs once they got inside and were waiting for the elevator.

But it seemed like she wouldn’t have to do that.

There was a honk from a car parked against the curb and the guy turned to look. Felicity saw her chance and ran inside.

Roy opened the door for her after she knocked. Felicity immediately went into the kitchen and sat down at the little table next to Sara, accepting the steaming cup of coffee that was pushed toward her.

Sara looked at her over her own mug of coffee. “Did you enjoy your run?”


	5. Awkward First Meetings

Felicity tugged at the hem of her dress again in vain. She knew from the moment that Sara had given her that smile that she was going to regret it.

Now she was standing in the middle of her living room wearing a strapless black dress that barely covered her ass and was so tight that she was afraid that her boobs were going to spill out from the top. The black patent leather pumps on her feet were excessively high and her blond hair was so big that she was afraid that she was going to suffocate in it.

“This is a bad idea. Why are we even still going through with this anyway? I thought I’d ruined your grand plan last week when I yelled at him through the wall! I don’t want to do this, Sara. What makes you think that I want to have sex with a manwhore anyway? Do you think that I can’t get a date? Because I totally can. There’s this cute guy in my department at work who’s been flirting with me and I think he wants to ask me out. I might even say yes to him. And-”

A hand came down on Felicity’s mouth to stop her rambling and she glared up at Sara through narrowed eyes.

“Shut up. You’re going to do this because I want to live vicariously through you since Laurel ruined any chance of me and him sexing it up,” Sara said, removing her hand. “I may have been sick and complaining last week, but if that guy can do _that_ , the sex _must_ _be_ _good_.” She smirked and added the finishing touches on Felicity’s makeup.

Felicity rolled her eyes to herself.

Of course.

This was typical Sara behavior.

If Sara can’t do it, then let’s send Felicity instead! She’ll enjoy it for both of them!

That’s probably why she woke up with that tattoo on her shoulder that weekend in Vegas.

“And why are you here?!” Her arm shot out to point at Roy, who was hovering in the doorway to her kitchen.

He snickered. “Because I want to see your face when you meet the guy. I still can’t believe you haven’t met him.”

“That’s because up until now I’ve been actively avoiding the man! If I didn’t know any better, I’d say that he’s alone in there but almost every morning on my way to work I catch a different girl sneaking out of his apartment.”

Roy laughed at her and went into her kitchen. He came back with a bowl of popcorn and two bottles of water. Sara caught one and ushered Felicity out her front door.

“Now, you know what to do right? I don’t have to stand here and feed you lines?” Sara asked, her expression intense and serious as she stared at Felicity.

She rolled her eyes as Roy snorted. “Yes, Sara.”

Sara nodded. “Good. If you need us, we’ll be down there watching.” She pointed toward the end of the hallway near Roy’s apartment.

Felicity shook her head to herself before knocking on the door. She nervously fingered a wayward lock of hair and chewed on her bottom lip.

This wasn’t going to work.

Sara was crazy if she thought Felicity could pull this off!

Before she could change her mind the door swung open and a tall, imposing man with broad shoulders and arms that looked like they could snap her in half stood in the doorway. He eyed her curiously before giving her a warm smile.

“Hello. Can I help you?” he prompted when she didn’t say anything.

Suddenly Felicity heard someone choking and she and the man turned and looked down the hall. The bowl of popcorn was tipped over and Sara was standing behind Roy trying to give him the Heimlich maneuver.

Anticlimactically, a small piece of popcorn came flying from his mouth and Roy began vigorously shaking his head at her. Sara looked confused, but was shaking her head too.

“Those your friends?” he asked her, eyeing them.

Felicity crossed her arms across her chest and nodded. “Unfortunately.” She turned to look at the man again. “You don’t live here, do you?”

He shook his head, rocking back on his heels. “Nope. I’m just here to pick up some papers for my best friend. You must have been expecting him instead of me when I opened the door, huh?”

“Yeah, but it was nice to meet you anyway. I’m Felicity Smoak.”

“John Diggle,” he returned, shaking her hand. “But everyone just calls me Digg.”


	6. Awkward Confessions

Felicity slid into the booth with a smile, happy that she wouldn’t be eating by herself since Roy had class during her lunch hour today.

Now that she thought about it, it was sad that one of her only friends besides Sara was a kid who basically made fun of her on a daily basis and thought it was funny that she lived next to the manwhore.

It was raining in Starling City today and Felicity hated it. She had already been in a bad mood when she got up that morning due to the around the clock wall banging that didn’t stop until almost four in the morning, but it only got worse when she saw the rain and couldn’t go on her morning run. And then when she got to work, she couldn’t find a parking space and had to drive around for almost half an hour before she finally found one.

Then maybe an hour after she had finally sat down at her desk, the next thing she knew a shadow had materialized over her and she had screamed bloody murder at the top of her lungs because that was the very last thing she was expecting. Miraculously, no one had heard her scream other than the guy that had scared her, but that was because there wasn’t a soul outside her office. It was almost like they had taken a break at the same time. He just smiled sheepishly at her before apologizing and asking her if she could fix his laptop after he had spilled a latte on it.

She was so embarrassed that she could barely look at him the entire time she helped him beyond that initial first glance. If someone asked her what the man looked like, she couldn’t tell them beyond saying that he was ridiculously tall, had blond hair, and obviously scared the shit out of everyone on her floor.

So because she had such a dismal morning, Felicity decided to treat herself by going to Big Belly Burger for lunch. And once she got there, there were, of course, no open tables.

Just as she was about to turn and leave, a familiar face had waved her over to sit with him.

“So how are you, Felicity?” Digg asked after the waitress had taken their orders. “I haven’t seen you since you and Sara roped me into helping with one of her self-defense classes a couple weeks ago.”

Felicity shrugged, taking a sip of her drink. “I’m good, but I’ve had the morning from hell,” she sighed, sitting back in the booth.

His eyebrows rose up his forehead as he stared at her. “Really?”

“Yeah, but I don’t think you want to hear about it,” she told him, suddenly finding a scratch in the linoleum table interesting.

“Oh, really?” he repeated, now curious. “And why’s that?”

“Well, _technically_ , you could say that my morning from hell started when I first moved into my apartment a few weeks ago. And it may or may not have to do with a certain friend of yours,” Felicity admitted, cringing slightly. She could not believe that she had just told him that. Where was her verbal filter when she needed it?

Digg frowned at her and shook his head, muttering under his breath to himself. “What’d he do?”

She shook her head. “No, I shouldn’t have told you that. He’s your best friend, I shouldn’t be badmouthing him to you, Digg.”

He sighed tiredly and folded his arms across his broad chest. “Just tell me, Felicity. It can’t be as bad as some of the things that boy got himself into back when we were in college.”

Felicity bit her lip, uncertain. “Are you sure?”

“Yes, I’m sure.”

She huffed. “Fine, just remember that I warned you. Every night your bestie – or, as I affectionately call him, _the manwhore_ – takes a new girl to bed, and they,” she paused to make some hand gestures, “do _that_. And he does it oh so enthusiastically that he causes his bed to basically…bang against the wall of his bedroom. Coincidentally, my bedroom shares the same wall as his and his banging is so hard and loud that it _moves_ _my bed_. Digg, since I’ve lived in that apartment, I haven’t had a single good night’s sleep!” Felicity confessed, suddenly finding the awkwardness creep up her spine as Digg stared at her with wide eyes, his mouth gaping open. He shook his head after a moment and began to mutter under his breath.

Their food arrived a minute later and after Digg had taken a bite of his burger he spoke. “I’ll talk to him.”

Felicity was quick to shake her head, alarmed. “No. No, no, no, no, no! Don’t do that!”

“I’ll talk to him,” he repeated with finality, giving her a hard look daring her to object again.


	7. Shocker

After finishing lunch with Digg, Felicity returned to Queen Consolidated in much better spirits than when she had left. For the rest of the day she sat at her desk and was able to finish all of her work in peace.

When she finally got home, she changed out of her work clothes and pulled out her collection of nail polish.  She carefully chose a bottle of dark green polish and began to paint her nails, softly bobbing her head to the beat of the music she put on.

Later on while she was in the middle of watching a movie on her laptop her phone started to ring. Blindly, Felicity reached out and grabbed it from the coffee table and answered the call.

“Hello?”

“You will not _believe_ what Laurel told me last night!” Sara started without preamble.

Felicity hummed. “Another infamous Lance Sunday night dinner?” she asked, unsurprised. There was always at least some new drama at one of their dinners every month. “What’d she tell you?”

“She told me, after she single-handedly drank an entire bottle of wine by herself, that she’s been fucking _cheating_ on Tommy for months now. Months!”

Felicity gasped and quickly hit pause on the movie. “No way! Did you ask her why? When we saw them last week Laurel and Tommy were all over each other.”

“She wouldn’t tell me. She just blushed and smiled, but that could have been the wine. And then, get this, when they were getting ready to leave the two of them stood on the porch for a good solid ten minutes making out,” Sara told her, her voice incredulous. “Dad wanted to go out there and wave his gun around and Mom was about five seconds away from pulling out her camera but I put a stop to that immediately.”

“There’s something wrong your sister.”

“I know. And to think, I always thought she had a stick up her ass and then she goes and does this…Shit. Hey, I’ve got to go. My next self-defense class is here. I’ll call you later,” she promised. “Bye.” Felicity told her goodbye before hanging up and unpausing her movie, pushing her thoughts about Laurel aside for another time.

A little while after the movie ended there was a knock on her door and after checking through the peephole she opened it. Roy stood on the other side, arms laden down with books and paper. He had a pencil stuck behind his ear and a slight wild look in his eyes.

“I need your help, Blondie,” he said, pushing past her into the apartment.

Felicity rolled her eyes to herself and closed her door. “Well hello to you too, Roy,” she drawled out as he dumped his books down on her coffee table. “What’s wrong?”

Roy pulled a calculator out of the pocket of his hoodie and dropped it down onto the table too. He sat down on the couch and sighed heavily, scrubbing a hand down his face. “I have a Stats test tomorrow and I have no fucking clue what I’m doing. Again.”

She sat down next to him with a sigh of her own and pulled the textbook close to her.

They were in for a long night if the last time was any indicator.

Sometime after midnight Roy finally left after they went over his notes until he thought he understood.

Felicity dropped down into her bed and burrowed beneath the covers. She fell asleep almost instantly and the next thing she knew, her alarm was blaring in her ear. Like every morning she went on her run before eating breakfast and getting ready for work.

When she finally sat down at her desk, Felicity idly wondered why she didn’t feel so tired as she turned on her computer.


	8. Hello Old Friend

Felicity shot up in bed and quickly scrambled to put her glasses on. She blinked into the darkness a few times, confused, before turning to look at her alarm clock. The glowing numbers told her that it was 2:23 AM.

She frowned and swung her bare legs out from beneath the warm sheets into the cool air of her bedroom. Once her feet touched the floor she let out a low hiss at the sudden cold before quietly making her way to the kitchen. Felicity grabbed a bottle of water from the fridge and then sat at the breakfast bar.

A few minutes passed as Felicity drank. She wondered why she had woken so abruptly. It wasn’t like she was having some nightmare or someone was trying to break into her apartment.

So why was she awake?

It wasn’t like she had eaten some mint chocolate chip ice cream before she had eventually crawled into bed around ten. Because ice cream was supposed to cause nightmares, or something like that…

Or maybe it was the glass of red wine she had.

Or maybe it was nothing and she had just randomly woken up for no good reason.

Felicity sat there for a few minutes longer before going back to bed. She slipped back beneath the covers and put her glasses back on the nightstand before laying back down.

Just as she was about to fall back asleep, Felicity shot back up and twisted to look at the wall behind her. She stared at it in disbelief before cautiously pressing her ear against the wall and listening.

Nothing. She heard nothing.

Felicity grinned to herself before snuggling back into her bed.

Finally, some peace and quiet.

* * *

Felicity pushed open the door of the nightclub Verdant during her lunch break the next day. She looked around for signs of life before walking across the empty dance floor toward the bar where Digg was sitting.

“Hey, Digg,” she greeted.

He glanced up from the folder in front of him and turned to smile at her. “Hi, Felicity.”

“I’m not interrupting am I?” she asked, glancing at the papers spread out across the counter.

Digg shook his head and dropped the pen in his hand onto the bar. “Nah, I was just going over some stuff for the club. I was meaning to take a break anyway. So what can I do for you?”

“I just came to say thank you for getting the around the clock wall banging to stop. It actually stopped the day we had lunch last week, but I didn’t even notice until last night,” she told him.

Digg raised a brow at her in question. “Really? I would have thought you’d have noticed the difference almost immediately with the way you described the situation to me, Felicity.”

“Roy’s been having trouble with one of his classes and I’ve been helping him study every night. He doesn’t leave until almost eleven and it always feels like I’m the one who’s in that class instead of him,” she explained. “By the time my head hits the pillow I’m out like a light and my alarm is the first thing I hear when I wake up.”

He nodded in understanding. “Must be some class that kid’s taking. But you’re welcome. My ‘bestie,’ as you called him, needed a firm talking to anyway, so it was like hitting two birds with one stone.”

“Digg?” a voice called out from the office upstairs. “Can you come up here for a minute?”

“Speak of the devil. I better go see what he wants,” Digg said, gathering up his paperwork. He gave Felicity a quick hug and a peck on the cheek. “It was nice seeing you, Felicity.”

“You too, Digg,” she returned with a grin. “Now go do whatever it is that nightclub owners do with your bestie.”


	9. The Tiger and the Dragon

Sara placed a martini glass down in front of Felicity. There was a mysterious green liquid in the glass and was garnished with what looked like mint. Felicity raised a brow at her friend and pointed at the drink. “What the hell is this? I ordered a glass of wine.”

Felicity was sitting at the bar at Verdant with her back to the dance floor where sweaty bodies were grinding to the beat. She was wearing a skintight dark green strapless dress that reached midthigh and her hair fell down her back in curls instead of her normal ponytail. Her black patent pumps were still excessively high, but it didn’t matter because she wasn’t planning to leave the bar all night.

She would have preferred to be at home curled up with her laptop and a good movie on her couch in some pajamas, but Sara claimed to have some news that she didn’t want to tell her over the phone.

So, here she was.

“Just try it,” Sara urged with a grin, tossing a towel over her shoulder and pouring some shots for a group of girls. “It’s one of Verdant’s specials since it’s green. You’ll like it, I promise – it tastes like mint chocolate chip ice cream, your fav.”

Felicity eyed her dubiously before taking a sip. “Mmm,” she moaned. “You’re right.”

“I’m glad you like it, Smoak. It’s called Flying Grasshopper, but I refer to it as the Praying Mantis,” Sara smirked.

Felicity shook her head and glared at her. “That’s not funny,” she hissed.

Suddenly a box full of liquor bottles landed on the bar next to Felicity making her jump. “What’s not funny, Blondie?” Roy yelled over the pounding electric beat, leaning casually against the counter next to her as Sara took the box and handed it to one of the other bartenders.

“Oh, she’s still upset about what happened when we first met,” Sara supplied with a smirk when she didn’t respond.

Roy grinned and leaned in closer. “You guys never did say how you two met.”

“I dropped out of college my second semester and went to travel the world instead, which pissed off my parents to no end. I ended up in China, fell in love with the culture and stayed there for a few years. While I was there I learned martial arts after almost getting killed in a back alley in Hong Kong,” Sara started, mixing a drink for the guy sitting next to Felicity.

“And when I was still at MIT, I signed myself up for some kung fu classes after someone told me that I was a boring shut-in who dated recreationally,” Felicity continued, taking a sip of her drink. She went to continue but Roy cut her off.

“Wait, I knew Lance knows kung fu since she teaches it, but _you_ , Blondie?” he asked incredulously. “I just can’t see it. You’re too, I don’t know… _weak_ , I guess.” He poked at her arm as if to prove a point.

Felicity rolled her eyes at him and swatted his hand away. “I’m stronger than I look, Roy.”

“Yeah, she is,” Sara agreed. “We met at the Bronze Tiger – that martial arts academy downtown – a couple months after Felicity moved here and I got back stateside. The guy doing the training – Ben Turner, I think his name was – wanted to see what skill level everyone was at so he had people pair up and spar. Felicity underestimated me a little so she used a weak praying mantis technique when she struck first. I ended up throwing her across the room by accident.” She chuckled at the memory.

Felicity turned to look at Roy. “She laughed and said I looked like a flying grasshopper. So I changed tactics and used my normal tiger style against her dragon. Turned out that we were evenly matched. Sara and I became friends after that and the rest is history.”

“Is that why you have a tattoo of a tiger on your shoulder?” Roy asked.

She frowned and shook her head. “No. We were partying in Vegas and the next morning I woke up with the thing on my back. It was painfully obvious that it was Sara’s idea since she had spent six months talking about wanting to get a tattoo,” Felicity explained.

Sara grinned guiltily, shrugging her shoulders. “Yeah, I _might_ have had something to do with it,” she admitted. “Felicity made me get one before the end of the weekend though.” She lifted up the hem of her shirt to reveal a Chinese dragon on her right side.

“Whoa,” Roy breathed awestruck.

“Hurt like a bitch, but it was definitely worth it.” She glanced up behind Felicity toward the second floor. “I see Ollie’s finally decided to grace us with his presence.”

Felicity turned and looked up to see a man standing on the balcony with his arms braced against the railing. He had short cropped blond hair and stubble on his face. Her gaze lowered and she saw a gray suit with a white shirt open at the collar.

Roy glanced over his shoulder and smirked, laughter in his eyes. “Playboy Oliver Queen, son of Robert Queen, Blondie.”

“I _know_ he’s my boss’s son, Roy – I’ve heard the name before, just never seen him.”

He stared at her incredulously. “How is that possible?!”

“You’ve forgotten that Ollie’s been scandal-free for years now. He stopped getting in trouble and being an overall fuckup, like, a year before Felicity moved here,” Sara answered.

“And as far as I know, he never comes down to the IT Department when he’s at QC. Plus, this is the first time I’ve gone clubbing Verdant since Sara likes to drink at any place _but_ here,” Felicity added. She glanced back up at him, thoughtful. “So, I’ve never seen or met the man.”

But there was just something so familiar about him.

Like she _had_ seen him before.


	10. Dirty Minds

After Roy was called away to help Digg, Sara leaned on the bar countertop and beckoned Felicity closer. She drummed her fingers against the countertop and after a moment she spoke. “I’ve got some news on the Laurel-Tommy front and this time it’s Tommy centric,” she declared.

“Oh, yeah?” Felicity raised a brow in anticipation.

Sara nodded. “Do you remember Tommy's secretary, Helena?”

“Yeah, the super crazy chick who thought you were some sort of assassin and threatened to kill you.” Crazy was an understatement. The damn woman was a psychopath and Felicity was surprised that she wasn’t arrested for assault and battery yet.

“Well, this morning, Laurel asked me to give Tommy a file that she had accidentally taken since she had to go to court. I was heading toward Merlyn Global anyway, so I said sure. When I got to his office, Miss Crazy wasn't around so I knocked on his door and went in. She was sitting on his desk buck naked and he was fucking her like there was no goddamn tomorrow!” Sara groaned, covering her eyes and cringing.

Felicity gasped, wide-eyed. “ _Oh my God!_ What did you do?”

“What do you think I did? I dropped the file and hightailed my ass the fuck out of there!” she screeched, throwing her hands up in exasperation before raking a hand through her hair and shaking her head. “Do you know what this means? Laurel and Tommy are both cheating on each other at the same fucking time. I thought they had nothing in common and were all wrong for each other when they first started dating last year, but now I know they're _fucking_ _perfect_ together.”

“What the hell is wrong with them?”

“No fucking clue,” she sighed. “And now I can’t get the image of Tommy’s ass out of my head. Every time I look at him, it’ll be the only thing I’ll be able to see.” Sara shuddered and grimaced before pouring two shots. She pushed one toward Felicity and they simultaneously knocked them back.

Felicity shivered and shook her head. “Thank you for that image, Sara. Now, get me drunk, so drunk that I can get that nasty, dirty picture wiped from my mind and I won’t be able to remember it later.”

Laughter bubbled up out of Sara and she grinned. “I wish I could join you, babe,” she sighed wistfully before moving to the other end of the bar and mixing a drink. She came back a few minutes later and placed another green drink in front of Felicity.

“What’s this?” she asked, taking a sip.

Sara grinned impishly. “Tie Me to the Bedpost.”

“Kinky. I didn’t know you were into that kind of stuff, Sara,” someone said suddenly from beside Felicity. She looked to her right and almost spit out her drink.

It was Oliver Queen!

“You don’t know what I’m into, Ollie,” Sara shot back. “For all you know, I like Sex with an Alligator.”

Felicity snorted at that one. She remembered when they were at Poison and Sara had ordered one of those. The bartender had blushed so hard. She had never seen someone look so embarrassed before and she had grown up in Vegas.

“I know for a fact that Sara _does_ like Sex with an Alligator,” she said, slyly glancing at her best friend. “It makes her feel tingly all over.”

Oliver laughed and turned to look at her. “Is that so?”

She nodded with a laugh of her own. “Mmhm, she told me so.”

Sara bit back a laugh and shook her head in exasperation. She made to say something but one of the other bartenders called out to her. “I’ll be right back – someone probably ordered some drink Sin’s got no idea how to make. Keep an eye on my girl, Ollie,” she ordered with a menacing look before turning away.

Oliver took her hand in his own and Felicity found his smile disarmingly handsome and she could only describe the look in his blue eyes as smoldering.

“I’m Oliver,” he told her. She held back a shiver as he leaned in just a little closer, allowing her to feel the warmth radiating off of his body and catch a hint of the cologne that he wore.

A pink blush colored her cheeks and she gave him a shy smile from beneath her lashes. “Felicity,” she returned.


	11. The Morning After

Early morning sunlight filtered in through the windows and Felicity slowly blinked her eyes open.

Her memory was slightly fuzzy around the edges and the pounding in her head was manageable. 

She thought back to the club and remembered that Sara was turned into a bouncer for the night. The girlfriend of one of the usual bouncers had gone into labor and there hadn’t been anyone to call on such short notice. Roy must have opened up his big mouth to someone because it was the only explanation why she had been asked to cover the door. Sin took over mixing Felicity's drinks at Sara’s request and the girl had made them extra strong compared to her. 

Oliver had stayed close to her side, brushing off the advances of other girls, never letting his eyes stray too far without returning back to hers mere seconds later. His hand would travel the length of her arm, starting first at her shoulder and slowly caress her bare skin, leaving behind a warm tingle before reaching her fingers while they talked. Other times he would play with the ends of her hair when he whispered something in her ear to make her laugh. 

As the night progressed, and they became drunker, he became bolder.

He had moved until his body was almost pressed against hers, so close that she could feel the heat radiating off of him in waves and letting the heady scent of his cologne flood her senses.

She sighed softly as she remembered…

* * *

Her eyes fluttered shut and a breathy sigh escaped from between her lips. Felicity leaned toward him and breathed in his spicy, musky scent as his fingertips traced random patterns on her back.

She sighed again and slowly opened her eyes. His crystalline blue gaze was heated and intense as he stared back. It was almost like he was staring into the very depths of her soul and was liking what he saw there.

“Felicity,” he mouthed, the corner of his mouth curving up into a smile as he said her name.

His arms banded around her waist and she suddenly found herself on her feet, her body pulled flush against the length of his. She gasped at the sensation of her softness pressed against his hardness. Her hands landed on his chest as she caught herself and he just grinned.

He ducked down so that his warm lips just brushed against the shell of her ear. “Dance with me,” he breathed, tickling the skin and making a shiver run down her spine.

She nodded shakily and allowed him to pull her out onto the middle of the dance floor, pushing through the sweaty bodies rocking and grinding to the pounding beat until they were surrounded on all sides.

Felicity closed her eyes and let the music guide her. Her hips rocked and swayed to the beat and his hands wandered aimlessly along her body as they danced, igniting a fire on the inside that she had never felt before with any other man. His lips skimmed the column of her neck and she gasped, her arms curling around his neck and drawing him closer in response.

“So sexy,” he whispered against her cheek, the roughness of his stubble tickling her skin.

A moan slipped through her lips as she fantasized about having that same stubble rub against her bare thighs. The image prickled her mind through her lust and alcohol infused fog, almost as if it wasn’t the first time she had thought of that, but she ignored the feeling and focused on his touch.

Her eyes flashed open and she met his heated gaze as his hands dipped down her back before settling on her ass. She gave him a coy smile and threaded her fingers in his hair before capturing him in a hungry, passionate kiss as they moved to the seductive beat surrounding them.

He nipped at her bottom lip and she relented, opening to him completely. His tongue invaded her mouth and he ravished her, claiming her with his mouth. She lost herself in his touch, his scent, his kiss and forgot that she was surrounded by all these people.

* * *

Felicity gasped softly and touched her lips with her fingertips.

She couldn’t believe that she had done that. It was so out of character for her. She wasn’t the type who had sexy, intoxicating encounters with men she had just met on the dance floor of some random night club that had been fueled by pure lust.

That was Sara’s thing.

She was more the type to at least go out on a date with a guy and then see what happened. Most of the time at least.

An arm wrapped around Felicity’s waist and drew her close, pressing her tight against a warm, hard chest. She gasped again as she realized that she was naked beneath the sheets of a bed that was most definitely not hers.

Slowly, she turned in his arms and peered into the serene face of Oliver Queen.


	12. Quacks like a Duck & Looks like a Duck

As the night raged on around them, Felicity was reminded why she rarely ever drank.

Alcohol made her brave and it made her bold.

When she went clubbing, Sara did enough drinking for the both of them and she usually tried to get them in trouble like it was her one and only purpose in the world. After that one weekend in Vegas Felicity took to staying coherent and making sure nothing happened that they would later regret. But there were always those times when it was her turn to throw all caution to the wind and be a little wild.

And tonight was one of those nights.

She had been having somewhat of a dry spell lately and Sara had been hounding her to just pick some random guy at every club they went to have sex with for months. That was probably her real reason for trying to get her to sleep with the manwhore.

Felicity rubbed her hand up and down Oliver’s chest. She smiled up at him with come-hither eyes and slowly let her arm snake up and wrap around his neck. Her fingers came to rest at the nape of his neck and played with the short hair there.

His eyes darkened with lust and he pulled her impossibly tighter against his chest. A gasp parted her lips and then he was suddenly there, his lips pressed against hers in a hungry, passionate kiss that stole her breath away.

“Let’s get out of here,” he breathed, his lips brushing against her ear as he spoke. A shiver ran down her spine and she nodded shakily.

It was all a blur from there.

Oliver pulled her off the dance floor and out of the club. They tumbled into a cab and the next thing Felicity knew she was being pressed against a door. Her arms came up to snake around his neck as she pressed kiss after kiss, lightly nipping with her teeth, along the column of his throat. A low growl rumbled through his chest as he struggled to open the door and she grinned, loving the power she had over him.

Eventually he got it open and they stumbled into his apartment, lips interlocked in a heated kiss. The door slammed shut behind them and she moaned into his mouth as his hands glided down her back, passed her hips, and finally settled on the swell of her ass. He squeezed once before wrapping her legs tight around his waist and walking across his apartment to the bedroom.

They fell onto his bed and it was a frenzy from there. Felicity shoved his jacket down his arms and ripped his shirt open so that she could kiss down his chest. He hissed at the feeling of her lips on him and pulled her in for yet another searing kiss. They shed the rest of their clothes, throwing them haphazardly around the room, and they came together for the first time of many that night.

The night was filled with the sounds of gasps and moans and skin slapping against skin with his every pounding thrust that forced the headboard to bang against the wall followed by screams of pleasure when they came.

* * *

Felicity carefully studied Oliver’s face as he slept. She traced the planes of his face, the slope of his nose, and the curve of his lips with her eyes, unable to deny how handsome he was. Her gaze drifted downwards and she admired his hard, chiseled abs and toned muscles of his arms.

A part of her still couldn’t believe that she had done any of the things she had done last night, but she didn’t regret one moment of any of it.

How could she when she had the best sex of her life?

She settled back down against her pillow and just watched the steady rise and fall of his chest, content where she was for the moment. Her gaze flickered to the bedside table beside him and she cringed at the time, suddenly remembering that she hadn’t checked in with Sara before leaving Verdant. There was probably a search party full of cops on the streets of Starling City looking for her.

Felicity really didn’t want to leave, but if she just texted Sara, her best friend would have demanded that they meet anyway so that she could see that she was alright with her own two eyes. She carefully extricated herself from his tight embrace and scooped her dress up off the floor where it had been haphazardly thrown the night before and quickly put it back on before scrawling a quick note on a piece of paper, unwilling to wake him up. She gathered her heels and purse and with one last glance at his sleeping form slipped out of his bedroom.

Quickly and quietly, she made her way to the front door, bare feet padding softly against the cool hardwood floors. She opened it just wide enough to slip out and turned to close it with a soft click before moving to make a quick escape. Hopefully she would be able to get home before too many people saw her.

But she froze as she looked around the hallway.

She was already home.

“Fuck me,” she breathed as she felt all of the blood drain from her face.

Now that she thought about it, her mind no longer fogged by the alcohol, she _did_ recognize him. He was the man on the elevator who had invited himself on her morning run all those weeks ago.

She felt the breath leave her as she distinctly remembered that there was definitely some wall banging last night.

Oliver Queen was her manwhore neighbor.


	13. Search and Avoid

Roy shrugged on his leather jacket over his sweatshirt as he turned to lock his apartment door. He pocketed his keys and started to make his way to the elevator but stopped short. A woman in a green dress was standing frozen in the middle of the hallway, her purse and shoes clutched tightly in her hands. He squinted slightly at her before calling out uncertainly, “Felicity?”

The woman jerked violently at the sound of his voice and if he wasn’t concerned, Roy would have laughed. She turned to look at him, her expression shocked, and as soon as she made eye contact with him she scrambled to unlock her door.

“Felicity,” he tried again now that he was sure that it was her. She ignored him and continued to try to open her door. Roy rolled his eyes to himself and jogged down the hall. “Blondie.”

He reached her just as she slipped inside her apartment, promptly slamming the door shut in his face and throwing the deadbolt. Roy frowned at her strange behavior and rapped his knuckles against the wood.

“C’mon, Blondie, open the door. I know you saw me running down this hallway.” No response.

Roy’s frown deepened and made to knock on her door again, but paused when her neighbor’s door was suddenly thrown open. Oliver Queen stepped out sloppily dressed in some sweatpants and a t-shirt that was both backwards and inside-out. He raised a questioning eyebrow at his boss’s clothes and frantic expression but said nothing.

Oliver glanced up and down the hallway before finally spotting Roy standing there. “Did you see a blonde woman wearing a green dress, Roy?” he asked urgently and Roy thought he detected a hint of desperation in his voice. “She had a tiger tattooed on her shoulder and an industrial piercing in her ear.”

Roy quickly schooled his features and shook his head once without hesitation. “Nope. I was just about to leave for campus but I needed to ask my friend something first,” he told him, casually throwing a thumb behind him in the direction of Felicity’s door.

“Fuck,” Oliver cursed before rushing to close his door and tearing off for the stairs, muttering under his breath.

Royally confused, Roy looked between Felicity’s closed door and the direction Oliver had taken off. What the hell was that about?

He sighed and knocked again, expecting no response. “Felicity?”

“Go away, Roy,” came her muffled response near his feet.

He crouched low beside her door. “Felicity, at least tell me what’s wrong if you won’t open the door. You’re starting to kinda freak me out here.”

“I’m fine.”

“Yeah, well, I think this is the opposite of fine. C’mon, talk to me,” he tried.

“There’s nothing to talk about,” she insisted. If he wasn’t talking to the woman through her front door right now, he probably would have believed her.

Roy rolled his eyes and sighed heavily. Time to change tactics. “Why was Oliver Queen looking for you?”

Her response was immediate. “He was looking for someone else. Someone who’s not me.”

“Uh-huh. Right,” he drawled out sarcastically. He wasn’t buying her crap. “And how many blonde women wearing green dresses are running around at this hour? He even mentioned your tattoo and that piercing of yours – that’s pretty specific, Felicity.”

When she didn’t respond after a long time, Roy sighed in resignation and stood back up. “Make sure you call Sara, Blondie, and tell her you’re alright. When you disappeared from the club last night and didn’t answer your cell, Lance and her cop dad pulled together a search party to look for you. We were pretty worried.” He paused, suddenly choked up with emotion. “I’ve never really had family growing up and you and Sara are like sisters to me…I-I thought something bad had happened to you…I’m just glad that you’re okay though, Felicity.”

Roy stood there for a beat longer before moving away toward the elevator. As he waited for the doors to open, he decided that he would check on her later because that was weird behavior, even for her.


	14. Girl’s Night (with Roy)

Felicity pulled her door open later that night and looked between her two friends in confusion.

Sara grinned and playfully bumped her hip against Roy’s. “Looks like Harper and I had the same idea.” She was armed with takeout from Jade Dragon and pints of mint chocolate chip ice cream while he had a pizza from the place down the street. A few DVD cases were stacked on top of the pizza box.

After scanning the hallway behind them, she quickly ushered them inside. Roy raised a brow at her but she ignored him and sat back down on her couch.

“What are you guys doing here?” she asked, looking between them as Sara pulled out the food and Roy commandeered her seldom used TV.

“Well, you sounded off on the phone earlier when we talked and since I couldn’t come by this morning, here I am now.”

Felicity nodded and looked at Roy. “And what’s your excuse?”

He flopped down on the other end of the couch, remote in one hand and a slice of pizza in the other. “Saturday night and no one else to hang out with,” he shrugged.

The corner of Sara’s mouth twitched in amusement as Felicity stared at him dispassionately over the frame of her glasses. “Uh-huh. Sure.”

Sara sat down between them and clicked her chopsticks together. “Less talking, more eating. Start the movie, Roy.”

* * *

Halfway through the third movie, most of the food was gone and Sara and Felicity had started on the ice cream. Roy was sprawled out next to them, his feet propped up on the coffee table, dead to the world.

“Tell me everything. You only said that you slept with someone last night.”

Felicity curled her legs up beneath her and nervously played with the frayed edge of the blanket wrapped around her. “It was Oliver,” she mumbled.

Sara sat up a little straighter and leaned closer to her. “Really? Was it good? I’ve heard stories, but I wouldn’t know since the guy is like a brother to me.”

The corners of her mouth ticked upward and she nodded. “Better than good, Sara, mind-blowing,” she gushed, remembering the way his hands had moved against her body. “We talked before anything really happened, and he was so attentive. Other girls would come up to flirt with him and he wouldn’t even look at them. I like him…”

“I hear a ‘but’ coming,” Sara frowned. “What’s wrong with Oliver Queen, Smoak?”

“What’s wrong is that Oliver Queen is the manwhore!” she blurted out. Felicity anxiously chewed on her bottom lip as she watched Sara struggle to pick an emotion before finally settling on confusion.

“What? How is that possible?” she asked, “I thought you met the manwhore weeks ago.”

Felicity shook her head. “No, I only told you that the banging had stopped – you assumed I met him,” she pointed out. “Almost every free moment I had after you’re little scheme to get me laid had fallen through was devoted to getting the banging to stop.”

Sara smirked slightly at the mention of her plan. “I was hoping that after you two had sex, you would be able to get him to stop all the banging while he was still in post coitus.”

“Every time I tried, he was never home and you remember what happened when I tried to get it stop while he was doing it, so I didn’t bother. The day the banging had stopped, I had lunch with Digg. I had been really stressed out since I had a really shitty morning. I saw an opportunity and I ceased it. I told Digg about the wall banging his best friend was doing and he took care of it,” she told her, shrugging slightly and scraping at the bottom of her bowl of ice cream with her spoon.

“Wait, _best friend_?” Sara gasped in disbelief. “That’s why Digg answered the door! Makes so much more sense now.”

Felicity nodded once. “Yeah. So I never met him.”

“How did you even find out it was Ollie?”

“I left before he woke up so that I could go home and shower before going to see you. When I looked around the hallway, I realized that I was already home…” She paused and anxiously chewed on her lip as she remembered standing in the hallway that morning. The only coherent thought that went through her mind was that she had just slept with the manwhore. “Roy saw me and I rushed in here and wasn’t able to go any further than the door. He rushed out a few minutes later looking for me, Sara, and I don’t know…” Felicity trailed off and shook her head.

Sara frowned and placed their empty bowls on the coffee table before grabbing her hand tight in her own in support. “What did Digg say to get him to stop?”

“I don’t know. He said that Oliver needed a firm talking to anyway, that it was like hitting two birds with one stone when he asked him to stop,” she told her. “I spent the entire day thinking, Sara, and I just don’t know when it comes to Oliver Queen, besides the fact that he’s the manwhore next door. It was just supposed to be a one night and I would never see him again.”

“I wonder what the silence meant.”

“I don’t know,” she whispered softly, wondering exactly the same thing.

Sara grinned suddenly and squeezed Felicity’s hand tightly in reassurance. “Stop stressing, okay? How about you come to dinner with me tomorrow night and we can gossip about Laurel and Tommy at the table like they’re not even there? I can guarantee you that something interesting is going to happen – because something _always_ does – and it’ll make you forget all about Oliver Queen,” she promised. “For one night at least.”

“Sure,” she agreed. Lance Sunday dinners were always fun nights, even though they tended to make you want to rip your hair out by the end of the meal.

An explosion sounded on screen just then and Roy violently flinched awake, nearly falling off the couch with a yelp. He frantically looked around him before turning to look at Felicity and Sara with wide eyes. “What did I miss?”


	15. Dinner from Hell

As Sara slammed the door shut behind them, Felicity dropped her coat and purse on a hook.

“Mom! Dad!” Sara yelled out, looping an arm through Felicity’s as they made their way through the Lance house.

Felicity glanced around Sara’s parents’ house and noted the changes from the last time she was there. More photos had been added to the walls along with the new painting Dinah had painted and spammed everyone’s inboxes with for almost week to make sure every person she knew had seen it. The walls were painted a soft blue with white trim now instead of the cheerful buttery yellow from before. Fresh bouquets of white lilies littered the house at every turn and it was obvious that Dinah had over ordered again at the flower shop.

“In here, sweetheart!” They followed the sound of Quentin’s voice into the kitchen.

Sara’s mom was standing at the counter chopping the ingredients for a salad. Dinah smiled as soon as she spotted them. “Hi, girls,” she greeted.

“Hi, Mom,” Sara murmured into her mom’s hair as she hugged her.

Dinah pulled Felicity into a hug next. “Oh, it’s so good to see you, Felicity. I don’t think I’ve seen you since my birthday a few months ago. Sara, bring Felicity with you to dinner more often, will you.”

“Mom, I’m not going to subject Felicity to our weekly bickering more than once every few months!” Sara groaned. Dinah frowned at her daughter but said nothing as she went back to finishing the salad.

Quentin was standing over the stove stirring a pot of spaghetti sauce wearing the stripped apron Sara had given him that said ‘King of the Kitchen’ over his clothes. Felicity snickered to herself, remembering how excited he got at his last birthday party when he got it. The man wore the damn thing for the rest of the night and wouldn’t take it off.

Sara pressed a quick kiss to his cheek. “Hey, Dad.”

“Hi, sweetheart,” he returned. Quentin smiled at his daughter and turned to the second blonde. “Hi, Felicity. It’s been awhile since we’ve seen you at one of these things.”

Felicity grinned. “The last one was fun though. I loved how you, me, and Tommy got to have desert in here since everyone else was fighting,” she reminisced teasingly.

Sara scowled and crossed her arms as she glared at them. “Me, Laurel, and Mom were _not_ fighting. We were just having a slight disagreement,” she huffed.

“Sweetheart, you guys were _fighting_ ,” Quentin disagreed as he continued to stir the pasta sauce. “There was yelling and screaming. The neighbors were getting ready to call the department.”

She frowned at him but said nothing before pulling Felicity across the kitchen. “C’mon, help me set the table, Smoak,” she said, pulling open the cabinet and getting the plates.

* * *

Felicity could say with confidence that dinner was going well so far. No one had made offhand remarks about anything and Laurel had only said one condescending thing about Sara’s choice of work and lack of college degree. There were a couple times when Felicity could tell that Sara wanted to snap at her but held her tongue. The only time that it seemed like something was about to go wrong was when Tommy had walked in the kitchen behind Laurel and he saw Sara. He blanched, she glared, and it got even more awkward once he realized that Felicity was in the know too. Almost immediately, he backed out of the room and disappeared until dinner was served.

It was going so well and Felicity should have known that it was going to go to hell at one point or another because it wouldn’t be dinner with the Lances without some type of… _incident_.

The first indicator should have been the near constant smile on Laurel’s face that bordered on creepy.

The second should have been when she put down her fork and loudly said the words, “Tommy and I have an announcement to make,” causing all conversation to fizzle out and die.

 _She’s pregnant and doesn’t know who the baby daddy is_ was Felicity’s first thought. The second was that no matter what came out of Laurel’s mouth was going to cause an uproar from one or more members of the Lance family.

Laurel stuck her left hand out so that everyone could see the ginormous rock on her finger. “We're engaged!” she squealed.

“Oh, Laurel, sweetie, congratulations. I'm so happy for the two of you,” Dinah cooed, taking her daughter’s hand in her own so that she could get a better look at the ring.

Quentin narrowed his eyes at his future son-in-law and pointed his fork menacingly in Tommy’s direction. “You better take good care of my daughter, Merlyn,” he growled out.

Tommy gulped audibly. “Yes. Yes, sir, I will,” he promised.

“Yeah, congrats,” Felicity muttered, too busy watching the rising anger color her best friend’s face. Something told her that she should have gotten up the moment Laurel opened her mouth.

A fork dropped noisily onto a plate and all conversation ceased as everyone turned to look at Sara. Her face was full of cold fury and rage and Felicity unconsciously leaned out of the blasting zone towards Quentin who sat on her other side. “What the hell is wrong with the two of you?!” Sara snarled across the table at her sister.

“Sara!” Dinah gasped.

Laurel scowled and glared back. “ _What's wrong with us?_ Sara, why can't you be happy for us just this once!”

Sara gave a humorless chuckle and her tone became just a touch dark. “Because, Laurel, you told me that you've been fucking every guy in this city six ways from Sunday for _months_ ,” she hissed. “You have no business accepting a wedding proposal from any man when you’ve been cheating on the one you claim to love with every _other fucking_ man – including other lawyers at the DA’s office, random guys at bars and clubs, and, by some fucked up twist of fate, Felicity’s neighbor!”

Tommy angrily pointed a finger in Sara’s direction. “How dare you talk to her like that!”

“As if you’re any better,” she sneered back over the sound of her mother’s crying. “I caught you fucking that psychotic bitch you call a secretary in your office in case you’ve already forgotten because I sure as hell haven’t! I wonder how many other whores you’ve been cheating on my sister with.” Dinah gasped again and ran from the table without a backwards glance.

“You two are terrible people. I don’t even know why you’re in a relationship in the first place when all you do is cheat on the other at every available moment.” Sara shook her head and glared at the pair through narrowed eyes. “I only have one question though. _Why?_ Why are you cheating on each other in the first place when you two are sickeningly sweet and disgusting and obviously _in love_?”

Laurel laced her hand with Tommy’s and they shared a look and a secret little smile. “We fuck other people to make the other jealous.”

As soon as the words were out of Laurel’s mouth, Felicity grabbed her glass and the bottle of red wine and hightailed it to the kitchen just as Sara started to yell and scream obscenities at the couple. The door swung shut behind her, muffling their arguing some, and sunk down in the chair across from Quentin at the small table. She poured the wine until her glass was almost overflowing and after drinking a hearty amount relaxed back in her seat.

Quentin chuckled humorlessly and pushed a plate of tiramisu in front of her. “Bad, huh?”

She nodded, picking up her fork. “Really bad. I didn’t even see you get up.”

“Left just after Sara’s fork dropped on her plate. I was not sticking around for whatever hell that was going to break loose,” he muttered, jabbing his tiramisu covered fork in the direction of the dining room. “Do I even _want_ to know what’s going on?”

“No, it’s best that you never find out. Like, _never ever_ ,” Felicity stressed. She wished that she had never found out.

They ate their dessert in silence before a sudden thought came to her. “Do you ever wish you had sons instead of daughters?”

Quentin shrugged, taking a long pull from his cup of coffee. “Don’t think it would really matter since I get the feeling it’d probably be the same with them either way.”


	16. Gone Fishing

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Lol I love how everyone just assumes that Oliver and Tommy are friends in this fic...

“I mean, I get it – everyone does things to spice up their sex life. And I might not always _like_ my sister, but it doesn’t mean that I don’t love her. I wasn’t even going to say anything last night even when she made those digs at me, but when she said they were going to get married?” Sara sighed and shook her head. “I had to say something because you don’t do that when you’re getting ready to make that type of commitment. I don’t know which is worse: the fucked up situation Laurel and Tommy put themselves in or the look of complete disappointment on Mom’s face last night when she came back to the table,” she mused, stuffing her sweatshirt into her bag.

Felicity shrugged beside her in the driver’s seat and quickly signaled to turn. “I’d say your mom’s disappointment is way worse. From what I’ve seen, she gets upset with you and Laurel from time to time but she’s rarely ever disappointed in the two of you. What those two were doing goes against everything she believes in when it comes to love,” she said, turning her red Mini Cooper in the direction of Verdant.

“Yeah, Mom’s a hopeless romantic at heart,” she sighed, tying her blond hair back from her face. “Thanks for chauffeuring me around town this afternoon.”

“You’re just lucky I was feeling nice today after last night’s clusterfuck that was dinner,” Felicity told her. “What did you say was wrong with your car again?”

Sara dug through her bag, double checking that she had extra water bottles and her towel for later when she taught her self-defense class. “I didn’t – it wouldn’t start this morning and I didn’t have time to check it out since I was running late.”

A few minutes later they pulled up in front of Verdant. Sara dropped her bag onto the backseat and quickly took off her seatbelt before hopping out. “I’ll be right back. Don’t have a panic attack while I’m gone if you see him, okay?” Felicity rolled her eyes and told her to go already.

Sara chuckled to herself as she quickly crossed the street and slipped inside the club. People were rushing around stocking the bar and getting everything ready for opening later that night but she paid them no attention as she quickly crossed the empty dance floor and made her way up the stairs to Digg’s office. She made to knock but paused when she heard voices on the other side of the door.

“I don’t know what it was about that girl, but she was different, Digg. And it has nothing to do with the mindblowing sex we had either. She’s all I ever think about and if I didn’t know any better I would say that she wasn’t real but I have proof. She left a note. I just wish that she had stayed a little longer before leaving, or at least left me her number or something.” There was a pause and Sara pressed her ear against the door. “All I know is her name, Digg.”

“Oh yeah and what is it?” Digg asked.

“Felicity,” Oliver sighed. A tense silence followed before his voice angrily cut through the air. “Don't give me that look, Digg. I know what you're thinking. This isn't just me wanting to use her. I like her. It was different with her and it this isn’t just about the sex. I can't explain it and even if I could I wouldn't explain it to you if you're going to judge me.”

Sara dove away from the door just as it was thrown open and casually leaned against the wall next to it.

“Hi, Ollie,” she greeted. Oliver paid her no mind as he stormed out of the Digg’s office past her. She frowned at his retreating figure. “Okay then,” she mumbled under her breath before stepping into the doorway and rapping her knuckles against the door.

Digg sighed heavily and pulled a hand from his eyes to look at her. He raised a brow in question and leaned back in his chair. “What’s up, Sara?” he asked.

She smiled and pointed at the leather jacket hanging off the back of the couch over by the windows. “I was in such a rush to leave after I realized that Felicity had disappeared and I forgot to grab it.”

“Was there something else you needed?” he asked when she didn’t leave.

Sara sighed and sat down in the chair across from him. “What did you say to Oliver to get him to stop, _you know_ , picking up girls?”

Digg’s eyebrows shot up his forehead at her question and he stared at her shock. “How did you–”

“Felicity’s my best friend just like Ollie’s yours, Digg, and she tells me everything. And I mean _everything_ ,” she stressed. “What did you say to him?”

He leaned back in his desk chair and blew out a deep breath. “I told him that he was getting too old for that crap. He’s almost thirty years old and he’s slept with nearly every available woman in this city. When Felicity told me what was going on, I saw it as the perfect opportunity to talk to him. He’s been, as she called him, a manwhore. Has been since long before we met back in college. I asked him where he saw his life going in the next five years and he couldn’t answer me, so I told him to rethink his life choices when it came to women. He obviously did because Felicity told me that the… _banging_ had stopped.”

She nodded thoughtfully. “Okay. You obviously know what happened Friday night, so tell me this: has Ollie ever pursued a woman?” she asked. “Felicity told me he went looking for her after she slipped out before he woke up and I kind of overheard you guys’ conversation. Sounds to me like Ollie really likes her.”

“Oh, there’s no doubt that he likes her, Sara, but I don’t want her getting hurt. Felicity’s a sweet girl but Oliver doesn’t exactly have the best track record with the opposite sex. They usually fall at his feet and once he done with them, they’re gone. Never to be seen again.”

“She likes him too, but I can tell that she’s scared that he’ll break her heart. On the one hand he’s the manwhore next door who’s been making her life hell, but on the other he’s Oliver the really attentive guy who only had eyes for her.” Sara paused and sighed softly, rising from her seat and moving to stand near the window. She spotted Felicity’s little Mini Cooper and watched her play with her phone. “She’s miserable and I hate seeing her like this. If Ollie’s _really_ changed, then I’m going to do my damndest to get them together if he doesn’t already do it himself…” she said, trailing off as she saw Oliver pause on the sidewalk in front of Verdant.

* * *

Felicity swiped her thumb across the screen of her phone so that the two little candies matched up and made a row of three. She bobbed her head in time to the pop song playing on the radio, mouthing the lyrics, and periodically glanced at Verdant.

How long did it take to get a jacket?

She rolled her eyes to herself and tossed her phone back in her purse with a sigh. Felicity made to change the radio station from the hideous song that started playing to something else but paused halfway there. She froze, the hairs on the back of her neck pricking and standing on end, and squeezed her eyes tightly shut.

Oh, god.

She was being watched.

She could feel it.

“Don’t look. Don’t look. Don’t look.” Felicity chanted the mantra under her breath over and over, futilely trying to get her heart rate back under control. But she couldn’t resist temptation. She had to look.

Felicity slowly, deliberately, turned in her seat and looked out the window.

Oliver Queen stared back at her with those blue eyes of his from where he stood across the street.

Her heart stopped and she felt herself blanch the moment they made eye contact.

“Ohmygod!” she squealed and ducked down and out of sight the best she could behind the wheel of her car. “Don’t come over here. Don’t come over here. Don’t com–” A knock sounded on the window and she screamed bloody murder.

“God, Smoak! It’s just me,” Sara exclaimed loudly, tightly clutching her leather jacket to her chest. “Who the fuck were you expecting – a fucking axe murderer? You scared the crap out of me!”

Felicity ignored her as she opened the door and slid into the passenger seat. She quickly scanned the street for him but he was gone.


	17. Backed into a Corner

The sound of her feet hitting the pavement in a steady rhythm was Felicity’s only companion that morning besides the pulsing beats of the music playing from her iPod. She had successfully avoided Oliver all week which was no small feat in and of itself. He had been mysteriously popping up all over town coincidentally in the same place as her. And on more than one occasion she had seen him glancing around like he was looking for something or someone.

After the incident at Verdant on Monday, it left no doubt in her mind that he recognized her. She couldn’t get the look in his eyes out of her head. It was intense and full of a familiar heat that reminded her of that night.

The thought that he was still able to look at her like that both scared and thrilled her. She liked him _so much_ but it didn’t change the fact that he was still the manwhore. The nightly banging may have stopped next door but for all she knew he was still having sex with a different woman every night just not at his apartment.

She could have been just another notch on his extra-long belt of women if that was true.

Felicity shuddered at the thought, almost faltering in her step as she rounded the corner back to her building. She sure as hell hoped that wasn’t the case.

She slowed to a walk and pulled her headphones from her ears, letting the cord hang around her neck.

Saturdays were good days. She got to take a longer run in the morning. Her coffee tasted a little sweeter since she didn’t have to rush to drink it on her way to work. She was able to catch up on all the shows she had missed during the week, maybe even binge watch an entire season of one of her favorite shows. And the best part was that didn’t have to see anyone she didn’t want to see.

But when she woke up that morning, something felt off. Like her entire day was going to go sour.

She pushed the feeling away again and followed a tall, broad-shouldered man wearing a black baseball cap with the red Starling City Rockets logo on it inside her building and to the elevator. The doors opened a moment later and the man gestured for her to enter first. Felicity gave him a smile of thanks and got on.

The doors closed a moment later and Felicity went to push the button for her floor at the same time as the man. Their fingers brushed and Felicity snatched her hand back at the contact.

“Sorry,” he muttered lowly, pushing the same floor as hers.

Felicity shook her head and stared at her hand. “It’s okay,” she whispered. She curled and uncurled her fingers into a fist and glanced at the man out of the corner of her eye. When they touched it felt like a sharp jolt of heat had run up arm and it was like the good kind of heat that just warmed her up from the inside out. Just like when…

A gasp flew from Felicity’s mouth and she stumbled to the side, arms flailing out to hold onto something, as the elevator suddenly lurched and came to a stop in between floors. The lights flickered twice before finally going out and triggering the emergency lights. Felicity blinked as she realized that she was tightly pressed against a very hard chest with strong arms banded around her waist to hold her there. She felt her face flush with heat and slowly raised her head to look at him.

Heated blue eyes stared back at her and she felt all of the blood drain from her face.

“Fuck,” she breathed as she stared up into the face of Oliver Queen.

Oliver grinned and tightened his arms around her. “I wouldn’t be opposed to that,” he whispered breathily. Felicity gasped and quickly scrambled out of his embrace, backing up in the small space and putting as much distance between them as she could.

“No—no, that’s not what I meant,” she stuttered out. He was making her nervous. They were stuck together in a small, confined space with nowhere for her to go and that look in his eyes was _not_ helping matters either. The logical side of her brain was regretfully reminding her about him being her manwhore neighbor. But the other, illogical side wanted to give into that heated, lusty look he was giving her and jump him right then and there in the elevator and have her wicked way with him again.

He stalked forward, a predatory gleam in his eyes, and stood directly in front of her. Felicity gulped and stared up at him with wide eyes as Oliver brought both of his hands up to rest on either side of her head, effectively caging her in. Slowly he leaned in until they were close enough to kiss and brought one of his hands up to rest on her neck, eliciting a gasp from between her parted lips at his warm touch. He grinned and skimmed his hand up the column of her throat until he brushed the shell of her ear where her industrial bar rested.

“It is you,” he whispered softly. “So you do live here after all. I thought that was you I saw the other morning.” Oliver’s blue gaze swept over her face, darting twice to her lips, before settling on her eyes. “You slipped out without so much as a goodbye last weekend, Felicity.”

“I left a note,” she whispered weakly.

Oliver hummed and stepped even closer. “And you don’t know how disappointed I was to find that next to me in bed instead of you when I woke up,” he murmured huskily, reaching up to cup the back of her neck. Felicity eyelids fluttered shut, her heart beating erratically in her chest, and leaned into his touch. She felt his nose brush against hers and the next thing she knew he was kissing her.

His kiss was dominating as he ravished her mouth, eliciting a gasp from Felicity as she kissed him back. Strong arms slipped around her waist and traveled down until his hands were cupping her ass. Oliver gave her a firm squeeze before hoisting her up and encouraging her to wrap her legs around his waist.  Felicity’s hands fluttered across his chest, not knowing where to put them, before finally reaching up to knock the hat off his head and gripping tightly at the hair at the nape of his neck.

The lights flickered once above them before finally turning back on and Felicity suddenly remembered where she was and who she was with.

She was in the elevator with Oliver Queen.

The man who she had the best sex of her life with.

The man who was also her manwhore of a neighbor that had a revolving door of women that he may or not be still bedding at night.

Felicity unwrapped her legs around his waist and pushed him away, breaking their kiss. “No. I can’t do this,” she told him, already regretting the kiss.

He stared at her in confusion. “Why not?”

“Because—because you’re _him_. The manwhore. And I refuse to be with someone like that,” she babbled, eyes darting around the small space looking everywhere but at him.

“What are you talking about, Felicity? Who’s the manwhore?”

“What am I talking about? I’m talking about the banging. The nonstop banging that went on all night every night until it stopped! You—you’ve been…You’re banging my bedroom wall!” she snapped before deflating and slumping against the wall. “Or, at least you were…”

Oliver stared at her for a long moment in silence before opening his mouth to say something, but Felicity didn’t give him the chance. The elevator stopped at their floor and the moment the doors slid open she ran out, leaving him there to stare after her in shock and confusion.


	18. Dine & Ditch

Felicity silently followed Sara into Big Belly Burger later that morning. Her mind was a million miles away, off thinking about the incident in the elevator. She analyzed it from every angle she could think of and still couldn’t make sense of what had happened.

The things he had said, the way his hands had felt on her body, and that kiss—it just confused her even further.

She liked him, but he was the manwhore, which is what it all came down to in the end.

Suddenly the table shook in front of Felicity making everything jump and shake before settling again. “Smoak!” Sara called out. “Where were you just now? Did you even hear half of what I just said to you?”

Felicity grimaced guiltily and shook her head. “Sorry, what were you saying? Something about the power outage?”

Sara nodded as she sucked in a big gulp of her soda before starting up her tirade again. “Yeah! The entirety of Lamb Valley decided to go out while I was buying Laurel’s birthday present online. I was just about to click buy on my laptop when the lights went out. By the time I pulled the website up on my phone it was completely sold out. Now I have no clue what the hell I’m going to get Laurel for her birthday,” she sighed. Her eyes snapped up to meet Felicity’s with a sudden intensity. “Your building’s in Lamb Valley – anything interesting happen to you this morning?”

She bit her lip in hesitation before leaning across the table. “I got stuck in the elevator,” she whispered, worrying her lip between her teeth as she stared at her best friend, “with Oliver.”

“You did?” Sara breathed. “What happened?”

Felicity glanced around them, half expecting him to pop up out of nowhere like he always does these days. “He was all intense and stuff and then we kissed. It was a great kiss, too,” she groaned softly. “And then the power came back on and I freaked. I may or may not have told him that he was the manwhore.”

“So he recognized you?” Sara questioned, suddenly giddy.

She nodded, burying her head in her hands. “Yes! And I don't know if I want that to be a good thing or a bad thing yet.”

“I'd say it's a good thing, Felicity,” Sara murmured softly, pulling Felicity’s hands from her face. “Ollie’s never remembered any of the girls he's slept with. I see it all the time at Verdant. Girls slink up to the bar next to him, fully expecting him to remember whatever night they had shared, but they all end up leaving with their tails between their legs. So, it's good that he remembers you. Out of all of the women in this city, Oliver Queen remembers _you_ , Felicity Smoak.”

Felicity made to say something, but her gaze shifted past Sara’s shoulder toward the entrance of the restaurant as a familiar head of dark blonde hair came through the door. With wide eyes, she watched as he quickly scanned the room like he was looking for somebody and just as he turned in their direction Felicity gasped and slid down in her seat, discretely putting her hand up to shield her face.

Sara eyed her funnily. “What the hell is wrong with you?”

“Oliver…”

“What about him?”

Felicity chanced a glance over her shoulder again and slid even lower in her seat as he turned in their direction. “He’s here,” she hissed, pointing passed her shoulder. Sara made to turn and Felicity quickly kicked her in the shin. “Don’t look!” She glanced again and groaned.

“What?” Sara demanded, leaning down to rub her leg. “What is it now?”

“He’s coming over here and he’s got Digg with him,” she whispered, casually straightening up in her chair and willing herself not to look in his direction. Her heart was beating in her chest in a furious tempo against her ribcage and she felt her palms start to sweat. The man made her so nervous it wasn’t even funny.

“Hey, Felicity. Sara,” Digg greeted them as he and Oliver stopped next to their table.

Sara grinned up at him and Felicity swore she saw a wicked glint in her light blue eyes. “Hi. Looks like all of the tables are filled, huh? Maybe you guys should join us for lunch,” she offered, completely ignoring the warning look in Felicity’s eyes that was accompanied by another hard kick to the shin in the exact same spot as the other one. “Felicity and I were just about to order.”

A wide grin spread across Oliver’s face. “Perfect,” he said, sliding into the empty seat beside Felicity. She froze and stiffened in her seat, glaring at her best friend’s suddenly smug face. She had no clue what was going through her head, but Felicity was going to kill her later for this.

Felicity stiffened further when she felt his arm come up to rest on the back of her chair and deepened her glare at Sara. Digg caught her eye and raised a questioning eyebrow at her and she shook her head. Their waiter suddenly appeared just then to take their orders and once he was gone conversation bubbled up at the table, but Felicity barely said two words as Oliver shifted and the arm that was draped across the back of her chair was suddenly touching her.

For the rest of lunch, Felicity was hyperaware of the way his body was so close to hers. She found herself unconsciously leaning in his direction every now and then, and the moment she realized what she had done, she would jump away from him and force herself to focus on the food on her plate to avoid Sara’s smug face and Digg’s questioning look as he looked between her and his best friend.

“So, how’s Lyla, Digg?” Sara asked.

Digg smiled at the mention of his wife. “She’s good. Glad that the morning sickness phase of the pregnancy is over though.”

“Yeah, but now it’s on to the cravings phase. I was over their place the other night and she made Digg go out and get her some pickles and Oreos,” Oliver told her. Felicity let out a breathy gasp as she felt his hand come up to play with the end of her ponytail. She sucked in a sharp breath and watched him out of the corner of her eye as he continued to talk to the others. There was a soft smile on his face as he spoke to them. It seemed like he didn’t even realize what he was doing and she couldn’t handle it anymore.

This was too much after the incident in the elevator.

She could see them doing this, having lunch with their best friends, laughing and having a good time.

He was the manwhore, a womanizing playboy.

But he had never once looked at any of the other women in the restaurant who were sending him flirtatious, come hither looks, only her.

 _Too much_ , she thought.

Felicity shot up from the table suddenly, shocking everyone at the abrupt movement. “I’ll be back,” she said, not meeting any of their eyes. “I’m just going to go wash my hands,” she told them, pointing vaguely in the direction of the bathroom behind her as she scooped up her purse.

Sara eyed her curiously but nodded. “Okay.”

She gave her a tight smile and fled the table. Instead of taking a right to the ladies’ room, Felicity made a sharp left in the direction of the back exit. Once outside, she quickly made her way to her car and turned off her phone before spending the rest of the afternoon driving around the city.


	19. Not-So-Secret Admirer

A few days after what Sara had dubbed the _Unfortunate Case of the Disappearing Smoak_ , a day which Felicity still refused to explain her disappearing act, Felicity woke at the first signs of daybreak and went about getting ready for the day, deciding to skip her morning run after one look at the pouring rain outside.

She had a rough time trying to avoid Oliver over the past few days, too. It was like he was suddenly everywhere. Every corner she turned he was there. It was starting to get on her nerves.

Felicity sucked in a deep breath as she tightly held her keys to her chest. She counted to ten before quickly slipping out her front door. Once she was sure that Oliver wasn't coming out of his apartment, she calmly made her way out to her car and drove to work.

The entire drive there she distracted herself from thoughts of Oliver Queen by singing along to whatever song that came on the radio at the top of her lungs, whether she knew the lyrics or not.

* * *

A gentle knock sounded on the door to her office and Felicity looked up from her computer screen just as the IT department’s secretary popped her head in.

“Hey, Carrie,” Felicity greeted her. She shot her a quick smile as she quickly saved her work. “What’s up?”

Carrie pushed the door open wider and stepped inside. “Mr. Queen wants you to meet him and Dick upstairs on the executive floor in half an hour. His assistant mentioned that it has to do with the project that you’re working on.”

Felicity frowned in confusion, but smiled at her. “Thanks for letting me know, Carrie.”

The redheaded woman returned her smile. “No problem, Felicity,” she said before leaving her office, making sure to close the door behind her.

Half an hour later Felicity sat across from the CEO of Queen Consolidated and the head of the IT department, Richard Martin – or Dick as he insisted everyone called him. Sawyer Kyle, an engineer who worked in Applied Sciences, sat beside her on her left. He fidgeted every thirty seconds and self-consciously tugged at the collar of his sweater, making no effort to hide his nervousness. A fourth man that she had never met before sat a little ways away from them down the long table in the conference room.

She fought her own urge to nervously fidget in her seat. After all, she was sitting across from the big kahuna, _the boss_ , the same one who asked to meet with her rather than send a note or message with whatever request he wanted fulfilled. And let’s not forget that he was Oliver’s _father._

That fact alone was enough to make her nervous.

And on top of that, all she could see was Oliver’s blue eyes when she looked at him.

Robert Queen gave her a warm smile.  “Ms. Smoak,” he started, “I've heard wonderful things about your work in the IT department from Mr. Martin here. Similarly for you, Mr. Kyle, in Applied Sciences from Dr. Loring.”

Felicity gave a small smile, feeling her face flush with embarrassment. “Thank you, Mr. Queen.”

Sawyer muttered something along the lines of a thank you from beside her.

“Reports regarding the current project you’re working on have told me that you and your respective teams have been doing a great job.” He paused for a second and referred to the open file in front of him. “This is the joint report from two weeks ago. It says here that you were unable to successfully make the prototype work?”

Her brow furrowed in confusion and she slowly nodded, shooting Dick a questioning look while Mr. Queen was still focused on the file. Dick gave her a brief encouraging smile that only made her more confused. From beside her, Sawyer froze and she thought she heard him squeak. “Yes, there was an error in the coding along with a major design flaw that was found after initial testing. We have been working around the clock trying to fix these problems, but so far have been unable to find a solution to either one.”

Robert Queen smiled at her and gestured to Dick. “Mr. Martin mentioned this to me during a meeting last week,” he told her. “And he suggested that we bring in someone to help assist.”

“Felicity, Sawyer, I would like you to meet Ray Palmer,” Dick introduced. Felicity blinked at him before turning to look at the man. “He is an up and coming visionary in the tech world. Perhaps you've heard of his father, David Palmer, CEO of Palmer Technologies.”

Felicity blinked. “You mean the company that made the smartwatches?” She pointed at the one on Dick’s wrist as he nodded and grinned.

“Yes,” Dick continued. “Ray has been personally chosen by myself, Dr. Loring – who unfortunately couldn’t make the meeting – and Mr. Queen, considering how important this project is for Queen Consolidated. You will be working closely together with  Ray until you've finished.”

Felicity nodded and smiled at her bosses before leaving the conference room with Palmer close on her heels ten minutes later. She pushed the button for the elevator and eyed Sawyer out of the corner of her eye. The poor man looked like he was having the tail end of a panic attack with the way he had all but ran out of the conference room, frantically pulling his tie away from his neck.

“Are you okay, Sawyer?” He jumped at the sound of her voice before turning to look at her.

He nodded and raked a hand through his dark hair. “I thought we were going to get yelled at by Mr. Queen for screwing up and pushing the project back a few weeks.” He glanced at Ray out of the corner of his eye before leaning toward her. “Between me and you, Felicity,” he whispered, “I'm glad Jean and Dick got someone to help us. But I wish it was anyone else from Palmer Tech. This guy’s good, but he tries to mess with the heads of the women he works with. Don't let him do that to you.”

“How do you know this?”

Sawyer scowled angrily. “Because he did it to my girlfriend before she met me.” He glared at Ray as they stepped onto the elevator. “Have Carrie tell the others in your department.” Felicity nodded in agreement; Carrie was protective of the girls and could be mean as a snake when she wanted to be even though she was normally very sweet. There was a reason why she was called Crazy Carrie by the other departments.

The elevator stopped on her floor and Felicity turned to look at Sawyer before she stepped off. “I’ll tell her,” she promised. He nodded stiffly, glaring at Ray again.

Felicity made her way to Carrie’s desk but stopped short. She spun on her heel and raised a questioning eyebrow at Ray Palmer. “Um. Can I help you?”

“I just thought I’d take a look at your work before I went down to Applied Sciences,” he told her, shooting her a smile followed by a not so subtle appraising look.

She fought the shiver that went down her spine and took an involuntary step back, Sawyer’s words coming back to her. “Well, I think you should take a look at what Sawyer has first before looking at any of the code.” She pointed to the conference room and took another step away from him. “But you’re welcome to check it out. My team is set up in the conference room over there.”

Ray stepped toward her. “Why don't we go together? So that you can introduce me?”

Felicity gave him a tight smile and shook her head. “I've got to check on something in my office and ask our secretary about something important. I don't think you need me to introduce you anyway – my team probably won't even notice you since they’re so focused on fixing this.” She shot him another forced smile, pointed at the conference room again, and quickly made her way to Carrie’s desk.

The redhead smiled widely upon catching sight of her. “Felicity! You didn't tell me that you have an admirer!” Felicity blinked stupidly at Carrie, not quite comprehending her words, momentarily forgetting what she was going to say.

“What?”

“A very handsome man came to see you while you were upstairs, but left disappointed when he realized you weren't here.” Felicity could only stare at her. Carrie smiled coyly and pointed toward her office. “But he left you a present on your desk.”

Felicity stared at Carrie and quickly made her way to her office. Snippets of conversation between her female coworkers over the top of their cubicles met her ears as she rushed across the floor and she was sure that they were all looking at her.

Two words, a name rather, caught her attention and she almost stumbled.

_Oliver Queen._

Felicity tightly shut the door to her office behind her and she immediately spotted the present Carrie was talking about. Gingerly, she made her way to her desk and plucked the little white card from the crystal vase filled with purple hyacinth.

_A little birdy told me that you like flowers, but only when they're given with meaning. I hope you understand – Oliver_

The card slipped from between her fingers to the desk and all she could do was stare at the flowers.

They said what she wouldn’t give him the chance to do because of her avoidance of him.

_I’m sorry._


	20. Creepy

Felicity glared at Sara over the top of her mug. “I know what you did,” she hissed across the table at her where they sat next to the window of their favorite coffee shop. “What you’re doing.”

Sara smiled shamelessly and bit into the sugar cookie on her plate. “What can I say—I guess I’m a hopeless romantic just like my mom.”

She rolled her eyes and slammed her mug down on the table, not caring that some of the coffee sloshed out onto the table. “The card said that ‘a little birdy’ told him about my thing about flowers.” Felicity pointed an accusing finger at the canary pendant hanging around her best friend’s neck. “Only you and my mom know that—and I highly doubt Oliver would track down my mother in Vegas when my best friend is right here in Starling.” She took a long pull from her mug before carefully putting it back down on the table. “How long?” she asked.

Grinning, Sara pushed her half eaten cookie aside and carefully folded her hands in front of her. “Since the day after that shitty dinner I dragged you to,” she revealed.

Felicity shook her head in disbelief. “And I bet that you were tipping Oliver off about where I was, whether it was the grocery store, the gym, the rec center when I was helping you with your classes.” A sharp gasp flew from her mouth as a sudden thought hit her. “You told him we were at Big Belly Burger! What the fuck, Sara!”

She shrugged, sipping at her black coffee. “You like him, he likes you—and I just want to see you guys together. I know you think he’ll break your heart and that makes you hesitant for good reason considering his past, but bottom-line he’s making an effort to win you over. And he’s working _really_ hard to do that, Felicity.” Sara carefully leaned across the table and placed a hand over hers. “You and Oliver are both miserable right now. Every time you dodge him, Oliver’s first response is to call me and he sounds lost every time. When you didn’t come back the other day, he freaked.” Her hand tightened over hers and Felicity looked up to meet her gaze. “I know his past scares you, but give him a chance.”

Felicity nodded and a silence drifted over them as they finished their coffee.

She thought about what Sara had just told her and decided that she would stop trying to avoid Oliver. If they happen to cross paths, she wasn’t going to run and hide from him. It only made the situation worse anyway—for both of them it seemed.

So caught up in her thoughts, Felicity failed to notice as Roy approached their table, chair noisily scraping against the floor as he pulled it out, and flinched violently at the sound, letting out a small yelp.

“Whoa, Blondie!” Roy exclaimed, eyeing her in concern. “It’s just me.”

“You scared the shit out of me!” Felicity stared at him with wide eyes, hand pressed over her racing heart. Loud laughter came from across the table and she glared at Sara. “Shut up! That wasn’t funny,” she snapped.

Sara wiped at the tears streaming down her face and shook her head. “You should have seen your face, Felicity,” she laughed.

Felicity rolled her eyes at her and turned to Roy as he sat down, pulling out his textbook and binder full of notes. “You’re late,” she told him as the waitress placed a large mug of coffee down on the table in front of him.

He nodded, shrugging out of his jacket. “I know. There’s construction going on near campus and it’s a nightmare dealing with the traffic at this time of day,” he sighed, grabbing his pencil and calculator from his bag.

“When’s your exam?”

Roy flipped open his textbook. “First thing Monday morning. And I’m going to need all of the help I can get.”

Sara frowned at them, glancing at Roy’s stuff. “Then why am I here if Felicity’s the one helping you study?”

“Because the last time Blondie helped me study before an exam I freaked out on her and she used her loud voice on me. You’re here to make sure something like that doesn’t happen, Lance.”

She looked between them dubiously, but nodded anyway.

Felicity pulled the statistics textbook closer to her and made to say something, but paused at the sound of a knock on the glass window beside her. Slowly, she turned to look and felt anger burn in her chest.

It was Ray Palmer.

What the hell was he doing here?

And how did he even find her in the first place?

Ray grinned salaciously at her from the other side of the glass and Felicity forced herself not to grimace as her skin crawled at the sight of him. He gestured that he was going to come in and she groaned in horror, burying her head in her hands.

“Who the fuck was that?” Sara hissed across the table to her, eyeing the man who had just walked in.

Felicity groaned. There was just no escaping this guy. “Ray Palmer,” she moaned.

Sara gasped in shock. “No way! That’s Ray Palmer?” She angrily shook her head and slammed her hand down against the table. “That motherfucker! I have half a mind to kick his fucking ass right here in this coffee shop!”

“No, don’t! We need him to finish the project at work,” Felicity hissed back. “If the project wasn’t so important, I’d have kicked his ass myself already. At the meeting today Sawyer was ready to wrap his hands around Palmer’s neck and strangle him just for the way he was eyeing me and the girls.”

“Wait,” Roy interjected. “Who the hell is Ray Palmer and what has he done?”

Felicity glanced over his head in Palmer’s direction before looking at him. “He’s the guy QC brought in to help us finish this big project that could potentially make the company a lot of money. Two days ago he tried to pull some shit with me and attempted to lure me out to the parking garage alone with him.”

He stared at her slack jawed. “The dude sounds like a total creeper that needs his nose bashed in,” he told her.

“Felicity.”

She sighed and turned to look at Palmer, giving him a forced smile. “Ray, what a surprise. What are you doing here?”

Leering at her, he pointed at her phone where it lay on the table. “I pinged your phone and thought I’d come join you,” he said.

Felicity blinked, dazed. What. He did what now? “Y-you pinged my phone?” She felt so violated now.

He nodded. “Yeah. How else was I supposed to find you?”

Sara took that as her cue and stuck her hand out. “Sara Lance, Felicity’s best friend,” she told him, tightly squeezing Palmer’s hand in her own until she was sure the bones painfully ground against one another as she gave him an overly friendly smile.

“Ray Palmer,” he squeaked, quickly snatching his hand back. “Lance? I think I’ve heard that name before somewhere.”

“Well, my dad is the police captain and my sister Laurel is the assistant district attorney—maybe you’ve heard or seen them on the news.” She shot him a smile, enjoying the sudden discomfort that crossed his face.

“Maybe,” he agreed stiffly, turning his attention to Roy. “And you are?”

Roy glanced at Felicity in concern before turning his glare on Palmer. “Roy Smoak, Felicity’s brother,” he said, ignoring the shocked looks both women were suddenly giving him. He gave the older man a dark, borderline evil smile. “It was nice meeting you, Ray, but I have an exam in a few days that the girls agreed to help me study for,” he dismissed him.

Palmer stared at Roy through narrowed eyes before slowly nodding. “Yeah, then I’ll leave you guys to it,” he said slowly. His gaze shifted to Felicity again, sleazy grin back in place. “I’ll see you tomorrow, Felicity.”

She nodded and gave him yet another forced smile.

After he was gone Felicity banged her head down on the table and groaned. “We need to find a new coffee house."


	21. Surprise Visit

Felicity pushed the door to her office open, head down as she scribbled down notes for the project on the file in her hands. She paused just beside the door and flipped through the file, read over the notes the members of her team had added after yesterday’s meeting with Applied Sciences, before continuing to jot down her thoughts and suggestions to fix the problem.

Movement out of the corner of her eye caught her attention and her instincts kicked in. She tightly gripped the pen in her hand and quickly threw it in the direction of the person sitting at her desk.

A grunt of pain let her know that she had hit her target. “Ow, that hurt!”

Felicity scowled at the sound of his voice. “What are you doing in my office?”

Palmer, rubbing at the back of his head where her steel pen at hit him, swiveled around in her chair to look at her. “I was waiting for you,” he told her like it was supposed to be obvious.

Her scowl deepened and her gaze narrowed. The man just wouldn’t leave her alone. Every corner she turned he was there without fail. It was starting to piss her off.

Felicity made to tell him to get the hell out of her office, but paused at the sound of a light knock on her door. She turned and spotted Carrie with a wide grin on her face standing in the doorway. “Hi, Carrie,” she sighed.

Carrie’s grin became impossibly wider, but it quickly turned into an angry scowl when her gaze slid passed her and zeroed in on Palmer. “You!” she angrily shrieked, pointing an accusing finger at him. “What are you doing in Miss Smoak’s office? I thought I told you to stay out after I caught you in here while she was out on her lunch break Monday afternoon!”

Felicity gasped in shock at this piece of information. Palmer had been in her office while she was gone? A shiver ran through her at the thought. She didn’t even want to know what he was doing in here while she wasn’t around.

Thank God the project was almost finished.

She would never have to see his damn face ever again. If she did, she couldn't be held responsible for her actions.

Carrie stormed into the room until she stood towering over Palmer in her bright green pumps, red hair flaming. “If Miss Smoak or I find you in her office without an invitation again, I’m going to report you to Mr.  Martin, Mr. Palmer,” she threatened. “I think he would just love to be informed of all of the problems you have caused for the women and a few of the men of this department and, from what I understand, in Applied Sciences also. Now, would you please kindly vacate Miss Smoak’s office?” The redheaded woman crossed her arms and pointedly looked between him and the open door.

Palmer gave Carrie a tight, insincere smile before slowly rising. His gaze slid across to Felicity and that fake smile turned lewd. “I’ll see you later, Felicity. It’ll be just me and you then.”

She gaped at him and took an involuntary step back as Carrie dove in front of her completely livid. “Now listen here, you,” she hissed. “If I find you someplace alone with Felicity, or any other woman, I’m going to make you wish I reported you to Mr. Martin. Because when I’m done with you, no one’s going to recognize that face of yours and you’re going to be missing a very important body part. Understand?”

He glared down at her and nodded sharply once. “Yes,” he ground out between clenched teeth before marching out the room.

Felicity slumped into the chair in front of her desk, clutching the file to her chest. She slowly lifted her head to look at Carrie. “Did that just happen?”

She nodded her head and crouched low beside her. “Yeah, it did,” she sighed, rubbing a soothing hand up and down Felicity’s tense arm. “Are you okay, sweetie? I should have been keeping a better eye on Ray Palmer as soon as you told me about him. He’s worse than I thought.”

“I'm fine, Carrie—just a little shocked. I'm glad the project is almost completed, though.”

Carrie sat with her in comfortable silence for a few minutes longer before suddenly gasping and making Felicity jump.

“What?” she asked, watching as a mischievous smile lit up Carrie’s face.

“I almost forgot,” Carrie squealed excitedly, tugging Felicity to her feet and taking the file from her, dropping it onto the desk. “Your admirer is here to see you.”

Felicity’s heart beat furiously in her chest and before she knew it Carrie was dragging her out of her office and past the cubicles where she could hear the excited whispers of her coworkers. They stopped a few feet away from Carrie’s desk where a tall, broad shouldered man stood waiting with his back to them.

Her breath caught in her throat.

She’d recognize those shoulders anywhere.

“Here she is, Mr. Queen.”

Oliver turned and upon catching sight of Felicity a wide grin spread across his face. “Hi.”

“Hey.”

He stepped closer until they were so close that Felicity had to tip her head back to look into those blue eyes of his. “These are for you,” he said, handing her a bouquet of flowers.

She looked down and saw bright yellow daffodils. “New beginnings,” she murmured softly, looking back up at him.

Oliver nodded, eyes never leaving hers as he hesitantly took her hand in his. “We went about things a little differently than most, but I don't regret any of it, Felicity. The only thing I regret is that my past has tainted the way you see and feel about me.” He laced their fingers together and intently stared at her. “I want to start over with you if you'll give me the chance.”

Felicity smiled and nodded. “Yes.”


	22. Stalker

Felicity woke with an extra spring in her step that morning that was reflected in the wide grin on her face as she pulled her hair back into a ponytail and grabbed her keys from her purse as she quickly made her way out of her apartment.

She’d had a great week with Oliver ever since he showed up at Queen Consolidated. They’d gone out to dinner one night at a little hole in the wall Italian place that she’d been dying to try with Sara for weeks and all they did was talk about everything and nothing. Another night they went out to the movies and ended up spending the entire hour and a half whispering in the back of the theater making fun of the characters and pointing out almost every goof that they spotted on the screen. And then yesterday he pulled her out of work a couple hours early and against her better judgment she let him. Oliver took her to the park near their apartment building in Lamb Valley and they had a picnic underneath a large oak tree. Afterward they spent the rest of the afternoon wandering aimlessly around the park, enjoying the cool fall weather, and before they knew it night had snuck up on them and they spent a few hours stargazing before eventually walking home.

But the best part of their date was when they got to her door and Oliver gently cupped her face in both of his strong hands and kissed her. It was a slow passionate kiss that made her toes curl and her fingers to grab desperately at his shirt before they eventually pulled apart.

Her grin threatened to split her face in half at the memory and she quickly exited her apartment before quickly rapping her knuckles against Oliver’s door. Almost immediately the door swung open and there he was.

“Hey,” he grinned.

“Hi,” she sighed back, letting her eyes wander appreciatively over his tall frame. Felicity met his gaze again and grinned when she saw humor dancing in those beautiful blue orbs of his and knew that she's been caught ogling him. “Ready?” she asked.

Oliver nodded, stepping out into the hall with her. “Ready,” he agreed, turning to lock his door and pocketing his keys.

Once they got outside, Felicity and Oliver started on their newly minted morning ritual. Since the day after he came to see her at Queen Consolidate, Oliver had taken to joining her on her morning runs and this Saturday was no different. They started off at a steady pace that kept them side by side but once they got to the last turn back to their building Felicity shot Oliver a playful grin. “Catch me if you can, Oliver,” she taunted before sprinting off down the sidewalk.

She heard him laugh behind her and call out, “Oh, I will, Felicity! You’ll see!”

The smile on Felicity’s face fell as she rounded the corner to their apartment and she quickly skidded to a stop. Parked against the curb in front of the building was a sleek dark blue sedan and standing next to it was the unmistakable tall figure of Ray Palmer.

She scowled and watched him as he kept glancing between the door to her building and his watch. Just seeing him standing there, lurking outside her home like the creeper he was, made her skin crawl and her blood boil at the same time. On top of that, it was causing her to flash back to college when she had that lacrosse player stalking her.

And that was not a good memory at all.

That fucker had spent almost every night for three weeks sitting in the nondescript gray sedan he drove in front of the apartment she had shared with two other girls. One of those girls was convinced that he was there for her while the other just flat out didn't care. Felicity threatened to call the cops on him multiple times but that didn't seem to do anything. It wasn't until her delusional roommate was attacked by Felicity’s stalker for being “the wrong one” to talk to him one night that they finally called the police. He was carted off in the back of a cruiser and never seen again fortunately.

With the way things were looking at QC and how Carrie was basically looking for blood when it came to him, it looked like something like that was going to happen to Palmer sooner rather than later. 

Strong, familiar arms wrapped around her waist just then and she relaxed into his warmth, the tension rolling away at his touch.

“See? I told you I'd catch you,” he murmured softly against her ear and pulling her tight against his chest and lifting her up off the ground, the smile obvious in his voice.

Felicity laughed halfheartedly and continued to watch Palmer “That you did,” she agreed.

Oliver placed her back on her feet and turned her to face him. Concerned blue eyes searched her face and he frowned in confusion. “What’s wrong?” he asked, pulling her close.

She sighed and loosely wrapped her arms around his waist. “Remember how I told you about the guy that Applied Sciences and IT brought in to help with the project I'm working on?”

He nodded slowly, brow furrowing in confusion. “Yeah, the one Carrie flipped out on when I picked you up yesterday. What about him? He didn't try anything with you again did he?”

“Not yet,” she sighed, hooking a thumb over her shoulder. Oliver frowned at her and looked in the direction she was pointing. Felicity watched his expression carefully and could pinpoint the exact moment he spotted Palmer. The soft blue his eyes usually were seemed to freeze over and turn dark while of the corners of his mouth turned down slightly in a frown.

His arms tightened around her waist and his jaw clenched before relaxing again. “What did you say his name was again?”

“Ray Palmer,” she told him.

“Palmer…” he repeated, frowning thoughtfully. “I think I went to high school with him. He scared the shit out of a lot of the girls even back then.” They stood there for a few minutes longer before Oliver pulled her tight against his side and tugged her along with him down the sidewalk. “Come on, let’s go see what he wants.”

As they approached their building, Felicity slipped her hand into Oliver’s. He glanced down at her and shot her a quick grin just as they stopped a few feet away from Palmer. Felicity eyed him disdainfully. A part of her wanted to take up Sara’s offer to have her father arrest him but another knew that they still needed the bastard until the unveiling of the project in a few days. But it didn’t change the fact that she really, really, really wanted to kill him or maybe just settle on kicking his ass herself.

“Felicity,” Palmer greeted her with a smarmy smile, eyes flicking over her in a way that made her skin crawl. His leering gaze zeroed in on the hand clasped with Oliver’s and for a second she could have sworn she saw cold fury in the man's eyes mixed with some crazy. She blinked and the look was replaced with a cocky smile.

“Ray,” she forced out, keeping her voice even.

His head tilted to the side as he appraised them and Felicity definitely knew she saw crazy in his eyes this time. “Aren't you going to introduce me to your friend?”

Felicity clutched tightly at Oliver’s hand and quickly glanced at him out of the corner of her eye. He gave her an easygoing smile that immediately calmed her nerves and held his free hand out to shake Palmer’s. “Oliver Queen.”

Recognition flashed in Palmer’s eyes. “Ray Palmer,” he returned, shaking Oliver’s hand. “You’re Robert Queen’s son, right?” Oliver nodded tersely but didn’t say anything.

Knowing that she wasn't going to like the answer she was going to get, Felicity bit the bullet and asked anyway. “Ray, how did you know where I lived?”

“I’ve been following you home from Queen Consolidated since Monday,” he told her, yet again acting like this was normal. “I got worried when I didn't see you leave and I saw your car still parked in the garage last night.”

“You’ve been following me home?” she spit out, feeling all of the blood drain from her face. The unveiling of the project couldn't come any sooner.

Oliver pulled her to stand behind him and Felicity buried her face gratefully into his back. She didn't think she could continue looking at Palmer without wanting to either throw up or scream. “I think it's time for you to go, Ray,” he ground out, glaring at the other man. “If I find you outside our building or anywhere near my girlfriend again, I’m going to make you wish I called the cops.”

Felicity peaked over Oliver’s shoulder and saw that Palmer’s gaze had narrowed as he looked between the two of them. “He’s your boyfriend?” The crazy look returned when he caught her looking at him. “Fine. I know when I'm not wanted. But I'll see you on Monday, Felicity.” And with that he turned on his heel and got into his car before tearing off down the road like a madman.

Oliver gather Felicity in his arms and pulled her close, pressing a kiss on her head. “Are you okay?”

She nodded. “I just wish that he could take a hint. If he wasn't important at work, he probably would have gotten thrown out of QC already. And Carrie’s gunning to kill him because of the way he keeps bothering two of the techs in Applied Sciences and me and one of the guys in our department.”

They slowly made their way into the building and as they waited for the elevator a smile curled at her mouth. She tipped her head up to look at him and grinned. “So I'm your girlfriend? Don't you think that's a little early?”

His eyes softened and he reached up to brush a wayward strand of hair that had escaped her ponytail away from her face. “Maybe not now, but hopefully later on,” he murmured, pressing his lips to hers in what was supposed to be a chaste kiss that quickly escalated as they stood there.

The doors to the elevator opened just then and they heard a loud groan of annoyance. “Oh come on! Why does this keep happening to me!”

They pulled apart and Felicity grinned impishly at Roy as he stepped out of the elevator. “Sorry.”

He shoved his hands into the pockets of his hoodie and shook his head. “No you're not, Blondie,” he yelled over his shoulder as he made his way out of the building. “And I'll see you at work tonight, Oliver.”

Felicity grinned at Oliver and pulled him onto the elevator with her. “Come on, handsome.”


	23. Anticipate

Felicity leaned back against the wall at the front of the room and watched Sara talk to her class. It was one of the last lessons of the self-defense class she taught. She scanned the faces of the people listening to Sara talk and noticed that almost all of them were paying attention to her except for one young woman near the back. The woman looked to be about twenty years old with chin length light brown hair and she was staring directly at Felicity.

Finding it strange, she turned away to look at Roy. He was looking down at his feet, shoulders hunched almost like he was trying to make himself as small as possible. “What’s wrong with you?”

His head snapped up and he looked at her with a somewhat wild look in his eye. “Wrong? There’s nothing wrong with me!” he quickly denied. Felicity merely raised a brow at him and he caved. “Okay, fine. The last time I helped Sara out at one of these things, she spent the entire time throwing me across the room and I really don’t want a repeat of that. The woman is aggressive I tell you. She really gets into it even though it’s just a demo for these people.”

Felicity chuckled, finally understanding what she was doing there. “I think that’s why she asked me to help tonight. I’m going to be doing the demonstrations with you.”

Roy frowned at her before slowly nodding. “I guess that’s better. I don’t see you trying to throw me across the room head first,” he told her.

She flashed him a grin and patted him on the shoulder. “Oh, I don’t know, Roy. The night is still young. We’ll just have to wait and see what happens.” He sneered at her and moodily crossed his arms across his chest.

Sara held a hand out in their direction. “Everyone, I’d like you to meet my friends Felicity and Roy. They’re going to help with our demonstrations tonight,” she said. Felicity and Roy stepped forward and stood next to Sara, waving to the mix of men and women staring at them. “Okay, so, Felicity is going to demonstrate one way how to defend yourself if you get attacked on the street.”

At Sara’s cue, Felicity and Roy faced each other. He reached out and loosely grabbed a hold of her tank top near her shoulder and waited. “If someone comes up to you and grabs a fistful of your shirt like Roy just did, the best thing you can do is keep it simple like I’ve been telling you for the past three weeks. One technique is to bring your arm up and trap your attacker’s arm.” Felicity slowly followed through the movements before hooking her arm around Roy’s, forcing him to release her but still holding a grip on him.  “And from this point, you can follow up with other attacks.” Felicity released him and they stepped back from each other. “But sometimes, that’s not effective.”

Roy and Felicity assumed the starting position again and Sara continued. “Even though you can do that, your attacker can use their free hand to throw a left or right hook.” Roy dramatically brought his arm up as if he was going to take a swing at Felicity. “Instead of going for that arm holding you, you can bring the heel of your palm up to smash their nose in.” Roy made to hit Felicity again but she struck out with her hand and held it up to his face. He released her and made a show of throwing his head back like he just had his nose bashed in and stumbled back a few feet.

And the night continued like that. In between each demonstration, Sara would have her students pair up and practice the new technique taught. She and Felicity would go around and help while Roy hung back and watched.

Felicity stood back and watched the pair in front of her go through the motions of the latest technique Sara had just taught them. She nodded at the taller of the two women. “Good. Keep your arm up just like that and it’ll make it harder for your attacker to try and grab you,” she told her.

The redhead nodded as she broke away from her partner. “Thanks. Sometimes I feel like when Sara tells me I’m doing good, she’s only saying that because she has to,” she said, dragging the back of her arm across her brow.

“No, Sara won’t do that.” Felicity shook her head. “She’s a lot of things but she’ll always tell you the truth.”

At the front of the room, Sara clapped her hands together to gather everyone’s attention. “Okay. Great job tonight, people. You’re all doing really well. I’ll see you guys next week,” she dismissed them.

“Bye.” The redhead waved as she walked out of the room.

Felicity waved back and turned to move back to the front of the room but stopped short when she found the redhead’s sparring partner still standing there. It was the woman who had been staring at her at the beginning of class. Felicity smiled uncertainly. “Um, hi.”

The woman stared at Felicity through narrowed eyes in a scrutinizing way that made her want to fidget but she resisted the urge. “So, you’re the girl who’s been chasing after Ollie,” she said, eyeing her critically from head to toe.

“What?” Who was this woman and why was she looking at her like that?

A large, warm hand came down to rest at the base of her spine and she leaned back into his touch at the contact. “Thea,” he scolded the younger woman.

She crossed her arms and sent him a defiant look. “Ollie.”

Oliver sighed in exasperation, glancing worriedly down at Felicity. “We talked about this. You promised.”

“I just wanted to meet the woman who’s been chasing my big brother.”

Felicity’s eyes widened in shock and she stared at the woman.

She was Oliver’s sister?

That explained why she kept staring at her throughout class!

“That’s where you’re wrong, Thea. Felicity hasn’t been chasing me – _I’ve been chasing her_.” Oliver smiled fondly at her and pressed a kiss to her temple, his arm moving to wrap around her waist and pull her flush against his side.

Felicity grinned up at him before looking to his sister. “He’s right,” she told her. “I spent weeks avoiding your brother.”

Oliver’s arm tightened around her waist and he pressed another kiss against her head. “Felicity, this is my sister Thea,” he introduced. “Thea, this is Felicity.”

Thea’s whole demeanor changed as a smile lit up her face. “Oh, thank God!” she cried, throwing her arms around Felicity and drawing her into a tight hug. “I was convinced Ollie was going to end up a terminal bachelor. I’m so happy to meet you, Felicity! Sorry if I seemed like a bitch but I just wanted to make sure you weren’t like all those floozies who were chasing after him all the time.”

She laughed and hugged Thea back. “I’m happy to meet you, too.”

They spoke for a few minutes longer before separating for the night. As Felicity and Oliver walked across the parking lot, he glanced down at her. “Are you ready for tomorrow?”

“Yes and no. I just hope nothing goes wrong during the unveiling.”

He squeezed her tight to his side. “Don’t worry, Felicity. Everything will go smoothly.”


	24. Strange Encounters

Felicity leaned against Oliver, his arm wrapped possessively around her waist, as they mingled with her co-workers and other QC employees after the final unveiling of the project. She pressed her face to his neck, uncaring of all the eyes on them, and sighed. “I want to go home,” she whispered.

He gently squeezed her waist, pressing a kiss to her temple. “Me, too,” Oliver murmured back. “Come on, let’s go find Thea and say bye and then we’ll leave.”

She let him pull her through the throng of bodies until they spotted his sister standing by the windows talking to somebody. Felicity took one look at who she was talking to and dug her heels in as she shook her head, forcing Oliver to stop. “No. Nope. I don’t think we need to physically tell your sister we’re leaving, Oliver,” she told him, tugging futilely on his hand. “We can just text her from the car. Come on.”

Oliver followed her gaze and chuckled, capturing her hands in his. “They’re just my parents, Felicity. They’re not going to bite,” he reassured her.

“Your mother’s frightening,” she protested with an insistent pull at his arm. “I met her one time and I don’t think she particularly likes me.” Felicity flashed back to the one time she had encountered Moira Queen at a QC fundraiser last year and shuddered.

His hands traveled up her arms, fingertips softly skimming the length of her throat, before gently cupping the back of her neck in his hands and tipping her head until she met his gaze. “They’ll like you, I promise,” he murmured softly, his equally hypnotic and distracting blue eyes focused on her with laser precision. “Besides, my mother already likes you. She claims you've tamed the beast in me.”

Felicity frowned at him, but before she could respond Thea was suddenly standing there next to them. “There you guys are!” she exclaimed, tugging at their arms. “Mom and Dad have been looking for you, Ollie. They want to meet the girl who made you change your ways,” she told them with a wolfish grin.

They let Thea drag them through the crowd, stopping once they stood next to her parents.

“Found them,” she announced, cutting into whatever conversation Mr. and Mrs. Queen were having and turning their attention onto them.

As soon as his father finished greeting them, Moira Queen immediately turned to her son with a warm smile and embraced him, pressing a kiss to his cheek. “Oliver, sweetheart.”

Futilely, Felicity attempted to pull her hand from his and run, but he held tight as he returned his mother's kiss. “Hi, Mom,” he returned. Oliver released her hand only to wrap his arm around her waist and pulled her tight against his side. “Mom, Dad, I’d like you to meet Felicity Smoak.”

Mr. Queen offered her a smile. “Ms. Smoak, you and Mr. Kyle did an astounding job tonight.”

Felicity nodded, a wide smile of her own spread across her face. “Thank you.”

Mrs. Queen turned to look at Felicity and she resisted the urge to fidget under the older woman's sharp gaze and stern expression, forcing herself to stand tall and at least pretend not to be intimidated. A tense beat of silenced passed, but eventually a warm smile spread across her face and Felicity could have sworn she saw a look of approval in her gaze. “It's lovely to meet you, Felicity. I'm happy I finally have the opportunity to meet the young woman to have captured my son’s heart,” she finally said, reaching out to grasp Felicity’s hands in her own.

Felicity blinked in disbelief. Was she suddenly standing in some parallel universe or did Moira Queen, the woman best known for her stone cold reputation, just approve of her dating her son?  “It’s lovely to meet you, too, Mrs. Queen,” she returned, still reeling.

“Call me Moira, dear,” she corrected, gently squeezing her hands. “I insist.”

She nodded. “Okay, Moira.”

Oliver shot her a triumphant grin as if to say _I told you so_ and looked to his mother. “We just came over to say goodnight,” he said.

“Oh, then goodnight, dear,” Moira responded, leaning up to kiss her son on the cheek. She turned to Felicity next, her smile just as warm as the one she gave Oliver, and took her hands in her own. “It was lovely to meet you, Felicity.”

She easily returned her smile. “It was nice to meet you too, Moira.”

“We're still meeting for coffee tomorrow, right?” Thea asked as she hugged Felicity.

She nodded. “Yep, at that new place that opened last week near my building.” Thea grinned and Felicity let Oliver guide her to the elevator.

* * *

Felicity and Oliver stepped off the elevator behind Carrie Cutter once they reached the parking garage. “You did so well up there, Felicity,” Carrie was saying as she pressed the button on her key fob, making the lights of a nearby sedan flash. “All that worrying you did about messing up your presentation was for naught.”

She made to respond, but the sounds of the beginning of a struggle echoed back to them from the other end of the garage. Carrie doesn’t hesitate before running to the source of the noise, dropping her clutch and keys in the process. She and Oliver shared a look before rushing after the redhead. They skidded to a stop behind an all too familiar blue sedan and Felicity bit back a groan.

Palmer.

Of course it was Palmer.

A scream of outrage suddenly filled the air and Felicity stared in shock as Carrie started hitting and kicking at Palmer right there in her floor length gown and high heels in the small space between his car and the one parked beside it. “What did I tell you about this kind of behavior?” she screeched, punctuating each word with a new hit or kick.

“Oliver, stop her,” Felicity rushed out as she finally spotted the young woman crouched beside them.

Felicity knelt beside the woman and recognized her as one of the engineers in Applied Sciences. “Pamela, are you okay?”

Pamela stared up at her with wide eyes, the can of pepper spray attached to her keyring tightly clutched in her hand. “Bastard came out of nowhere and grabbed me from behind,” she said, letting Felicity help her stand. “But I got him good. Right in those pretty brown eyes of his.”

Felicity eyed her worriedly and turned to see Oliver forcefully drag Carrie away from Palmer, kicking and screaming obscenities at him. Palmer, on the other hand, was curled up near the front end of his car whimpering pitifully. She would have felt bad for him, but he deserved everything he got and more.

“Hey! What’s going on over there?”

Everyone turned at the sound of the angry shout to see a security guard rushing toward them.

Felicity sighed to herself.

This certainly wasn’t how she thought her night was going to go.


	25. Queen v Harper

“Ollie never really told me how you guys met.”

Felicity was sitting across from Thea at a small table in the new café that had opened less than a week ago located only two blocks from her apartment building. Last night’s disaster with Ray Palmer served as a reminder of the last time she had ventured outside her home to get a good cup of coffee so she had spent the better part of the night writing a program to prevent someone from tracking her phone instead of cuddling with her boyfriend. Since she was reasonably relaxed and calm and not looking over her shoulder every thirty seconds, she was caught off guard when Thea said that and almost choked on her coffee.

She carefully placed her mug back on the table. “Well, what has he told you?”

“Only that you met at the club but had known each other for weeks before that,” Thea told her, popping a piece of muffin into her mouth. “Whatever that means.”

Felicity quickly schooled her features the best she could, taking a sip of her coffee as cover. There was no way in hell she was telling Oliver’s sister what that meant. “Oliver and I are actually neighbors,” she said instead. “He was…making a lot of noise at night when I first moved in and that was a huge problem between us before he stopped, but we’d never actually met until I visited my best friend Sara at Verdant for the first time since she started working there.”

Thea narrowed her eyes at her, biting into her muffin. The younger woman chewed thoughtfully before finally speaking. “I feel like there's more of a story inside there somewhere, but I'll let you and Ollie keep it to yourselves. I'd probably end up wishing I'd never known if you told me anyway.”

“And you’d be right,” Felicity said with a laugh.

They had lapsed back into a comfortable silence before Thea suddenly spoke again. “He's different with you, you know?”

She stared at her curiously, a bemused smile tugging at her mouth. “Different how?”

Thea met her gaze. “He's dated women in the past and he usually kept them from the family because he really never had any intention of dating them in the first place. But with you, he did nothing but talk about you so much that we had started to think you weren't even real. I think the first thing he wanted to do was introduce you to Mom and Dad.” Her phone suddenly vibrated across the table and Thea giggled at whatever she saw on the screen.

“What?”  Felicity asked, lifting her mug to her mouth.

She giggled again, a teasing smirk creeping across her face as she pocketed her phone. “Oh, nothing. Mom just asked me when I think you and Ollie are getting married,” she said, laughing as Felicity choked and sputtered on her coffee this time.  Thea just grinned before dancing away to the counter with her empty mug.

Felicity shook her head to herself, wiping the remnants of her coffee from her jacket. Moira Queen was a woman known for her stone cold reputation and in less than twenty-four hours she had completely obliterated everything Felicity thought she knew about her.

“Blondie.”

She looked up from her mug and turned to face Roy where he stood next to her. “How did you know I was here?”

He sunk down into the open seat next to her, tossing his notebook down on the table in front of him as he pulled out his calculator from his pocket. “I asked Oliver where you were when you didn’t answer my texts,” he told her, shrugging out of his leather jacket and getting comfortable. “Now let’s talk stats. I’ve got a quiz next week and this is probably the only time I can ask you for help.”

“If it wasn’t obvious, Roy, I’m in the middle of something,” she said, waving in front of them where Thea’s half eaten muffin waited for her. “I’ll help you later. Promise.”

Before he could respond Thea dropped into her seat across from them. The smile on Thea's face quickly turned into a scowl the moment she spotted Roy. “Leather Jacket,” she greeted him frostily.

“Princess,” he returned in kind.

_Leather Jacket?_

_Princess?_

What the hell was going on here?

"Um...” Felicity opened and closed her mouth several times as she attempted to find some words that wouldn't set off the two ticking time bombs sitting with her. The tension between them was so thick she was sure that even if she took the sharpest knife in her kitchen, she still wouldn’t have been able to cut through the hostility rolling off of them in waves. “So you guys know each other? That's nice...I think.”

“What the hell are you doing here?” Roy spat.

Thea shot him a nasty look. “I should be the one asking you that since I was here first! Tell him, Felicity!”

“No, no, no! Do not bring me into whatever the hell this is between you two,” she interjected before Roy could say anything.

The longer Felicity watched them, the more she realized that the tension between them was more than just hostile— _it was sexual_. Somehow they had just gotten closer over the few minutes they had been sitting there.

“You know what,” Roy finally snapped after he and Thea had traded several verbal barbs, drawing the attention of the people sitting around them, “I’m out of here. I’ll see you later, Blondie, when you’re not with _her_.” And he snatched up his things before storming out of the café.

Before Thea could say anything, Felicity held up a hand to stall her. “I’d like to pretend that the last ten minutes didn’t happen, please.” Thea readily nodded with an apologetic smile.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> We’ll catch up with Roy and Thea later, but next time Felicity’s got an engagement party to attend.


	26. An Affair to Remember

Oliver followed closely behind Felicity, his hand firmly settled on her lower back, as they walked with Sara to the open bar situated near the back of the large ballroom of the hotel they were in for Laurel and Tommy’s engagement party.

“Why did your sister ask me to be one of her bridesmaids?” Felicity asked Sara while they waited for the bartender. “We’re not that close. Doesn’t she have any other friends?”

Sara shrugged, leaning across the bar and attempting to draw the bartender’s attention when she thought he was taking too long. Felicity rolled her eyes at her back, making Oliver chuckle, and tugged the hem of her dress back down before she flashed everyone. “I don’t know,” she finally said, standing back up. “Probably because you know more about her than any of the people she claims are her friends. Did you say yes?”

“She showed up at work two days ago while I was on my lunch break with a gift basket full of fancy chocolate and a bottle of my favorite wine. What else was I supposed to do?”

The bartender finally came to take their orders and Oliver curled an arm around Felicity’s waist while they waited. She leaned into him and snuggled against his chest. “If we see the happy couple, this night’s going to be a lot more awkward than when Diggle walked in on us in my office,” he whispered against her hair.

Felicity sighed against him, fingers tightening around the strap of his suspenders beneath his jacket. “Well, we survived that so we’ll be able to survive seeing them,” she responded. “Besides, I’m part of the wedding party now so we better be.”

Their drinks finally arrive and the three of them move to stand around one of the many tall round tables set up around the ballroom with large pink and white flower arrangements dominating the surface. They chat for a few minutes and Oliver lets Felicity and Sara dominate the conversation. His arms wrap around her waist from behind and Felicity automatically leaned back into his chest. A smile curved at his mouth and he pressed a kiss to her head as she responded to whatever Sara was saying.

It had been a couple weeks since Oliver had introduced her to his parents and they already adored her, perhaps almost more than he did if his mother was any indication. She had suddenly made it her life’s mission to constantly pester them about getting married and giving her grandchildren. If he was younger and it was any woman other than Felicity, then he would have been embarrassed and trying desperately to get rid of the girl he was dating. But he found that the pictures that his mother were painting were something that he actually wanted as long as Felicity was by his side in them.

Oliver was broken from his thoughts as Malcolm Merlyn suddenly joined them. He greeted the girls with kisses to both of their cheeks and a wide smile. “Lovely to see you both as always, ladies,” he said. His attention shifted onto Oliver then and recognition lit up his eyes. “Oliver, my boy! I don’t think I’ve seen you since you were a teenager sulking in the corner with my Tommy at the charity events Moira and I used to put together for the foundation. It’s nice to see you again.”

“You too, Malcolm,” he returned.

Malcolm’s smile widened when he saw his and Felicity’s intertwined hands. “Ah, young love—I wish you all the best.” He paused suddenly, looking around them, and turned to Sara with a frown. “Did you come alone, dear? I thought you were dating Nyssa still.”

“We broke up months ago,” Sara told him. “We ended up wanting different things in life, but we’re still friends. Nyssa and I still have our weekly kickboxing sessions like we always did though.”

“I’m sorry it didn’t work out for you two, dear,” he said, gently grasping her hands in his own. “If you’re alone tonight, do you at least have a date for Tommy and Laurel’s wedding?”

She frowned at him. “The wedding’s not for months, Malcolm. They haven’t even set a date yet.”

Malcolm nodded in agreement. “Yes, but you know your mother. The moment Tommy and Laurel are declared husband and wife Dinah will descend on you demanding to know when you’ll be next if she sees that you don’t have a date that day. Better to start looking sooner rather than later.”

“God, you’re right,” Sara agreed with a grimace. “Do you know anyone? You were the one to introduce me and Nyssa in the first place and we were pretty good together.”

Malcolm turned to look around the packed ballroom before settling his gaze on someone standing on the other end. “He might look a little worse for wear at the moment, but he’ll do the job, I believe,” he said.

Oliver followed Malcolm’s gaze and Felicity swore beside him, expressing his thoughts exactly.

“No. God, no. Not that fucker,” Sara spat. “What the hell is he doing here? He shouldn’t even be allowed to fucking walk around.”

Malcolm stared at them all in confusion and Oliver jumped to explain. “There was an unveiling party at Queen Consolidated for a project Felicity was heading and we were leaving when we heard Palmer attempt to hurt a woman in the parking garage. We were with one of Felicity’s co-workers when this happened and she went crazy on him,” he began.

Felicity picked up where he left off, still glaring in Palmer’s direction. “She gave him a black eye and a few good bruises by the time the security guard showed up. He went to call the police and Oliver stepped aside to call his dad down to the garage. Carrie had a done a number on Palmer, so we didn’t think he would try anything else, but the moment we turned our backs on him, he grabbed me from behind.” She glanced at Malcolm, a slight smirk lifting the corner of her mouth. “And you know me—I reacted. Broke his wrist and knocked him on his ass. Quentin showed up a few minutes later and they carted him away to jail.”

“For like three days, though,” Sara snorted derisively, crossing her arms across her chest. “His daddy bailed him out and had the entire incident swept under the rug like he always does apparently. And that’s not the only thing he’s fucking done either! The motherfucker has a history of this kind of crap a mile long, including stalking Felicity and a bunch of her co-workers. God, Dad and Laurel were so pissed when they found out he’d gotten away with so much shit.”

Malcolm grimaced and gently gathered Felicity into his arms, pulling her into a hug. “Oh you poor girl,” he murmured before turning to Sara. “And to think I thought he would be a good match for you.” Malcolm’s expression hardened and Oliver watched as a dark look clouded his eyes as he focused his gaze on Palmer. “Don’t you worry – _I’ll take care of him_.”

They watched as Malcolm stalked off through the crowd in Palmer’s direction where he stood out with his black eye standing next to his father. “I feel like the _Jaws_ theme should be playing,” Felicity said, making Oliver and Sara nod in agreement.

“Malcolm’s going to ruin him and his father before the night’s over and then they’ll be nobody’s problem anymore,” Sara remarked with a grin as she took a swig from her beer bottle turning back to face him and Felicity. Her gaze slid past them and her brow furrowed. “Laurel’s frantically waving us over.”

Oliver let Felicity drag him through the crowd as they followed Sara as she elbowed her way through until they stood with Laurel and Tommy in an awkward circle.

Tommy looked around at everybody and nodded once. “Well, this is awkward,” he drawled out.

“So, uh, congratulations on your engagement, guys,” Oliver said, hoping to diffuse at least some of the tension surrounding them.

“Thanks, man,” Tommy readily returned, “I appreciate it.”

Sara turned to her sister, arms crossed. “So, what’s up?”

“We just wanted to talk to some familiar faces after spending the last forty minutes talking to people we’d never met before,” Laurel responded. “Mom and Dad disappeared somewhere earlier.”

“Yeah, letting my dad have free reign over the party was a bad idea in hindsight,” Tommy admitted. “The man knows, like, the entire city.”

There was another awkward pause and then Sara said, “So, since we’re all in the know…You guys still fucking other people?”

Chaos erupted in their small circle almost immediately.

“You promised!” Laurel gasped out while Tommy froze up beside her before frantically looking around to see if anyone heard her.

“Sara!” Felicity hissed out and Oliver swore, shaking his head to himself.

But Sara only shrugged. “What? It’s a valid question, Smoak!”


	27. Surprise Arrival

“They should just fuck and be done with it,” Sara declared a few weeks later, tossing a handful of popcorn into her mouth as she watched Roy and Thea verbally spar in Felicity’s living room.

Oliver scowled, flicking flour at her. “That’s my baby sister you’re talking about,” he growled, pulling the latest batch of cookies from the oven.

Felicity laughed as she finished frosting the batch of devil’s food cupcakes that she had baked earlier in the day. She and Oliver were baking so her kitchen was filled with all kinds of different baked goods. Once Oliver found out that she baked every year for her mom’s birthday he immediately jumped at the opportunity to help. Surprisingly, he was pretty good at it.

“You've been saying that all week,” Felicity said, moving the tray of finished cupcakes to the counter.

Sara set aside her popcorn bowl and jumped down from the counter beside the sink, rolling up her sleeves. “You haven't spent the last week listening to them fight over stupid little bullshit one minute and start eye-fucking the next when they think the other isn't looking every night,” she retorted as she started scrubbing pans. “I regretted picking up those extra shifts at Verdant the moment they started their shit. The only reprieve I got was when you'd show up, Ollie, and they'd stop.” She paused and glanced over her shoulder at Felicity and Oliver. “Do either of you know what started their little feud?”

Oliver shrugged and shook his head. “No idea. I asked Thea once and she wouldn’t tell me.”

“Well, I asked Roy the other day and he spent twenty minutes ranting and raving about some incident at a frat party they were at involving spilled drinks and some asshole hockey players,” Felicity told them, carefully transferring the completely cooled cookies into a container.

Roy and Thea’s arguing suddenly got louder and Felicity leaned over her breakfast bar. “Hey, you two, tone it down,” she reprimanded them. “In case you’ve forgotten, Lyla’s napping in the other room.”

Lyla appeared around the corner, hands resting on her prominent baby bump as she waddled into the living room.  “It’s okay, Felicity,” she said, “I was already awake.” She came to sit at the breakfast bar and looked around. “Where’s Johnny?”

“Digg went to go pick up dinner from the vegan place across town that you like,” Oliver replied, moving to dry the pans as Sara finished the last one. “He should be back soon, though, and then we’ll start the movie.”

A knock sounded at the door and Felicity went to answer it, Sara close behind her. She pulled the door open and stared. “Mom?”

Donna Smoak dropped her purse as she squealed and pulled her daughter into a bone crushing hug. “Surprise, baby!”

Felicity hugged her back, a wide smile overtaking her face as the shock wore off. “What are you doing here? I thought I was picking you up from the airport tomorrow morning.”

“I was able to convince Barry to catch an earlier flight and here we are!” Donna squealed, bouncing excitedly in her high heels as she cupped her daughter’s face in her hands.

At the mention of her younger cousin, Felicity pulled away from her mom and drew Barry into a hug where he stood off to the side. “How was your week with Mom in Vegas?” she asked when they pulled apart. “She make you miss Central City?”

“Desperately,” he told her with a tired grin. “But it was nice to spend some time with Aunt Donna again. Hadn’t done that since before I went to college. It was almost like when we were kids again.”

“Good to see you again, Baby Face,” Sara greeted Barry with a teasing smirk.

Barry rolled his eyes at her. “When are you going to stop calling me that, Sara?”

“When you don’t have a baby face anymore,” she retorted, crossing her arms. “Or maybe when you finally start growing some facial hair.”

“For your information, I have a mustache,” he said, pointing at his upper lip.

Felicity frowned and cupped his face, bringing him closer into the light for them to look. “Where?” she asked after a moment, hearing her mom softly giggle behind them. “I don’t see anything.”

Sara took a look and shook her head. “I don’t see anything either.”

Barry slapped her hands away and pulled away with a glare. “Just because you don’t see anything doesn’t mean it’s not there!”

“If you say so, honey,” Donna was quick to reassure him, gently patting his hand. She suddenly gasped as Oliver stepped out of the kitchen to see what all the commotion was about. “Oh! The pictures just don’t do you justice, Oliver!” she exclaimed, making him blush in embarrassment.

“God, I hate you so much, Thea Queen!” Roy yelled out suddenly, drawing everyone’s attention.

“I hate you even more, Roy Harper!” Thea shot back.

And then they were desperately making out in the middle of Felicity’s living room.

Digg walked in through the open door a beat later as everyone stared at them in shock. “I’ve got dinner, everybody. What’d I miss?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> If anyone has any ideas to how I should bring our good friend Captain Cold into the fold, let me know because I'm drawing a blank!!!


	28. Coitus Interruptus

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for all the lovely suggestions, guys!! I have taken them all into consideration and have found the perfect opening for Captain Cold :D

A soft sigh slipped through Felicity’s parted lips, fingers trailing up his naked back to fist in his hair as he ravished the sensitive skin of her neck. “Oliver,” she moaned, holding him to her.

He hummed against her skin, pressing kiss after kiss to her heated flesh. “Yes, Felicity?” he murmured breathily, pressing a kiss to the back of her ear.

“We can't,” she protested weakly as his hands skimmed her waist and found their way beneath her tank top to cup her breasts. Another breathy moan slipped past her lips as he teased her and she forgot her train of thought. Her grip tightened in his hair and she forcefully pulled him way from her throat only to fuse their mouths together in a searing kiss.

His tongue peeked out and licked at the seam of her mouth. She opened for him and it became a battle for dominance that she eventually conceded to. Oliver pulled away, drawing a low whimper from her parted lips at the sudden loss, and started to place a trail of open-mouthed kisses along the column of her throat and down her chest instead.

He stopped just before reaching the tops of her breasts and started the circuit back up her chest. Unable to take his teasing any more, Felicity wrapped her legs around his waist and locked her ankles at the small of his back. She pushed against his chest until she sat astride him.

“Stop teasing me,” she growled, rocking against his hard length to emphasize her point as she pulled off her tank top leaving her naked except for her panties.

Oliver sat up and gave her a wicked grin before pulling her nipple into his mouth while his skillful fingers left a blazing trail of heat down her abdomen before delving into her panties. A moan left her as he licked and laved at her breasts while her hands roamed across his broad shoulders, trying to find purchase before she finally settled on fisting her hands in his hair as she held him to her chest. His fingers rubbed lazy circles against her sensitive flesh that made her gasp and pant as his ministrations gradually became faster and faster.

He suddenly released her nipple with a pop and pulled her down with his free hand to capture her mouth in a sloppy kiss. “Are you close?” he breathed, roughly nipping at her bottom lip.

She nodded furiously. “Yes, yes,” she panted, “I'm right there.”

A knock suddenly sounded on Felicity’s closed bedroom door, drawing a yelp from her when her mother’s voice followed. Felicity clung to Oliver and buried her head against his chest as he flopped back onto the mattress, quickly pulling the sheet up to cover them both just as Donna opened the door just a crack.  

“Aunt Donna, leave them alone,” Barry suddenly hissed from somewhere behind her. “They’re probably still asleep. The sun’s barely up.”

“But I forgot to pack my flat iron and I can't find Felicity’s,” Donna whispered back.

“Try looking again and then ask her if you still can’t find it,” he suggested just before the door snapped shut again.

Heart pounding furiously in her chest, Felicity sagged in relief against Oliver. He rubbed soothing circles across her back and pressed a kiss to her head. “That was close,” he murmured against her hair.

“Too close,” she sighed, rolling off of him and cuddling into his side.

* * *

Later that morning after Oliver and Felicity had gotten back from their morning run and showered, Felicity sat at the breakfast bar, nursing cup of coffee as her mother hovered over Oliver’s shoulder as he made pancakes.

“So who taught you how to cook?” Donna asked him as he plated the first batch of pancakes.

“My mom did, actually,” he told her, pouring more batter into the pan. “She thought it was a very important skill to learn, but I didn’t really start cooking until I was out of college and on my own.”

Donna nodded, closely watching as he added blueberries. “I’m horrible at cooking as I’m sure Felicity’s told you,” she said with a smile in Felicity’s direction. “But I absolutely adored baking with my own mother when I was a little girl so I turned it into a career and opened up my very own bakery in Vegas and called it ‘Mama Smoak’s Sweet Treats’. I taught Felicity when she was a little girl and tried to teach Bear after his parents passed away, but he had trouble with going off recipe. Right, honey?”

Barry dropped onto the stool beside Felicity, dragging a lazy hand through his still wet hair from his shower. “Yeah, I had a huge problem with your philosophy of baking from the heart instead of following what was in the book. That was incomprehensible to my nine-year-old brain,” he said, snatching a cookie from the container sitting on the breakfast bar once her back was turned. He met Felicity’s stare and raised a brow at her. “What?” he asked around a mouthful of cookie.

She shook her head with a small smile. “If Mom sees you eating that, she’s going to kill you.”

“I’ll survive,” he said with an eye roll.

“She almost made you cry last Christmas when she caught you sampling the cheesecake before dinner was even ready,” she reminded him.

“ _Almost_ ,” he stressed before stuffing the rest of the cookie into his mouth and quickly chewing it. He snagged her mug and carefully poured a generous amount of her coffee into his mouth without letting his lips touch the rim. “You’re welcome, by the way,” he added in a low voice, giving her the mug back.

It was Felicity’s turn to raise a questioning brow at him. “For what?” she asked.

“For stopping her before she walked in on you and Oliver this morning.”

Felicity stared at him in shock. “What?”

He just shrugged, sliding off his stool. “You guys weren’t exactly quiet. You’re just lucky Aunt Donna was concentrated on looking for your flat iron.”

She stared at his empty seat and slowly shook her head to herself.

Why did things just keep happening to her?

Why was this her life?


	29. It's a Small, Small World

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry about the wait, lovelies. I need to take a quick break from writing for a little while, but now I'm back :)

Later that morning, Felicity watched as Sara and Nyssa traded jabs and kicks as they sparred on the mats in one of the private rooms of the gym they frequented at the heart of their neighborhood. Their movements were fluid and practiced as they danced around one another. Sara planted one foot firmly on the mat and pivoted, throwing up one last high kick that forced Nyssa to lean back and drop into a crouch. She quickly followed with two quick hits to Sara’s chest that forced her to back off. They straightened and relaxed from their tensed positions, knocking gloves as they ended their sparring session.

“Did you tell Nyssa about your date last weekend?” Felicity asked, relaxing back against the wall as she watched the two women work to remove their gear.

A smile curved at Nyssa’s mouth as she swallowed a mouthful of water. “It went well, I presume?”

Sara shook her head, tossing her gloves and shin guards into her bag. “The opposite actually,” she said. “There was just something off about her.”

Felicity rolled her eyes at her best friend and crossed her arms, looking up at Nyssa with an exasperated look. “There was nothing wrong with the woman, Nyssa,” she told her. “Malcolm completely vetted her before introducing her to Sara after he almost accidentally set her up with a deranged stalker at Laurel’s engagement party. Her name was Lindsay, she’s a nurse over at Starling General who works in the emergency room, she regularly volunteers at the free clinic Malcolm set up in the Glades, and she’s from a respectable family in Avalon Park. Oliver and I met her when she came to pick Sara up from my apartment and we thought she was very sweet. _There was nothing wrong with her_.”

“Yes,” Sara insisted as she draped her towel around her neck, “there was. I have no clue what it was about her that I didn’t like, but I know it was there.”

“Perhaps she had something to hide,” Nyssa suggested as she tossed her duffle bag over her head to rest on her shoulder. “Or perhaps she was intimidated by all of your high profile family members,” she said with a snicker.

Felicity sighed as she pushed herself to her feet and joined them. “Laurel said the same thing when I went to Sunday dinner.”

“If that’s true, then that’s another strike against her,” Sara muttered as they filed out of the room. “Were you intimidated by Ollie’s parents when you started dating him?”

“Not because they’re high profile,” Felicity said with a shake of her head, pushing her purse higher up her shoulder. “I was intimidated because Robert’s my boss’s boss and Moira’s known for her stone cold reputation.”

Nyssa reached out to squeeze Sara’s arm when they stopped in the lobby and offered her a smile. “Don’t give up – you’ve still got a few months before the wedding. Plenty of time to find a date,” she tried to reassure her. She glanced at her watch and swore under her breath. “Shit. I’m late for lunch with my father and my sister.” Nyssa quickly hugged them both goodbye before leaving.

Once she was gone, Sara turned to Felicity with a raised brow. “Why aren’t you with Donna and Baby Face? I thought you and Barry planned a whole bunch of stuff to do with your mom for her birthday this weekend.”

Felicity rolled her eyes as thought back to earlier. “We did. My mom hijacked my boyfriend for the day to ask him god-knows-what without me there and I sent Barry to keep her in check before she scared Oliver off,” she sighed, exasperated. Knowing her mother, the woman would be trying to ask him wildly inappropriate questions about how often they had sex and in which positions or something equally embarrassing. She’d witnessed that type of interrogation when Barry brought his college girlfriend home with him one summer and Donna had scared the poor girl off in record time. After that incident, Felicity and her cousin had made a pact to never let that happen again.

“Good luck with that,” Sara snorted.

“So, what do you want to do this afternoon since I’m suddenly free?” she asked, glancing at the time on her phone. When Sara didn’t respond, she looked up and found her staring at somebody working out on a treadmill. “What’s wrong?”

“I know him,” she murmured quietly and said nothing else.

Felicity looked back to the man on the treadmill, silently wondering how they knew each other, and suddenly came to a revelation of her own when she took a closer look at him. “I know him, too!” she exclaimed as he jumped off the treadmill. “That’s Barry’s best friend—they were roommates in college.”

Before Sara could protest, Felicity looped their arms together and practically dragged her best friend with her until they stood next to him. “Leonard Snart, what are you doing so far from Central City?”

Leonard turned at the sound of her voice, a smile tugging at his mouth. “Same as you, Smoak – trying to make an honest living,” he responded, leaning in to give her a one armed hug. “How’ve you been?”

“I've been good,” she told him, returning the hug. “How about you? Anything new—other than you chopping off all your luscious black hair in favor for a buzz cut?”

He laughed, running a hand over his closely cropped hair. “Clients started to think I was some sort of criminal, so it all had to go,” he chuckled.

“So what are you doing here in Starling? Last I heard you were running your father’s security firm in Central City.”

“I actually just moved here a couple weeks ago,” Leonard told her. “We're expanding and opening another branch of the company here that I'm going to run while my sister takes over back home.” He paused to take a drink from his sports bottle and it suddenly occurred to Felicity that Sara hadn't said a single word since they approached him.

Felicity shot her a questioning look and she subtly shook her head in response. She rolled her eyes and dragged Sara forward, pulling her foot back just before she could attempt to step on it. Felicity plastered a wide smile on her face and held tight as Sara attempted to pull away. “Leonard, this is my best friend, Sara,” she introduced. “Sara, this is my little cousin’s best friend, Leonard.”

Leonard settled his icy blue eyes on Sara, a teasing smile playing at his mouth. “Oh, we’ve met,” he grinned.

“Oh, really?” Felicity looked to Sara expectantly. “She didn’t tell me.”

“Probably because she was embarrassed,” he teased with another grin.

Felicity laughed, clutching at Sara as she made one last effort to bolt. “Sara? Embarrassed? That’s something I’d pay to see. How did you guys meet?”

Sara mumbled something unintelligible that made Leonard laugh and Felicity forced her to repeat it. “I said, I grabbed him and kissed him,” she said begrudgingly, face blossoming pink, “when I was following Tommy at a club and thought he'd spotted me.”

“I’d say it was more than just a kiss, sweetheart,” Leonard teased her, making Sara blush even harder.

“Awww,” Felicity cooed, hugging Sara tight. “Mom’s going to be so happy that you guys have finally met.”

Sara sent her an incredulous look while Leonard just laughed again. “Wait, what?” she asked, pulling back to look her in the face.

“Mom has been trying to find a way to set you two up for a while now,” Felicity revealed with a grin. “And I couldn't see it at first, but now I totally do.”


	30. Dinner with the Family

Felicity clutched at her boyfriend’s arm as they followed their mothers through his parents’ house. “Explain to me how this happened again,” she demanded. 

Oliver pressed a reassuring kiss against her temple, reaching up to clasp her hand tightly in his own as his other arm moved to wrap around her waist. “Everything is going to be okay,” he tried to reassure her, but she could tell that he couldn’t even convince himself.

After having a late lunch with Sara and Leonard at Sara’s favorite authentic Chinese cuisine restaurant to make up for inviting Leonard to lunch in the first place, Felicity had gone home to wait for everyone to return. She only had to wait an hour before her mother had breezed back in through the door, excitedly announcing that they were going to have dinner at Queen Mansion, while Oliver and Barry followed her in at a more subdued pace. 

Donna had convinced Oliver to give her a tour of Verdant after predictably attempting to ask him about their sex life and Barry putting an end to that before she could even get the words out of her mouth. They had only been there for about five minutes when Moira had shown up looking for her son. And somehow, someway her mother and his mother had immediately hit it off upon meeting each other and Felicity didn’t have the slightest clue as to how that could have happened. 

Barry snorted on her other side. “Who are you trying to convince? Her or yourself?” he murmured just loud enough for them to hear, shifting the container in his arms.

Felicity grimaced, holding tighter to Oliver’s hand. “Something’s going to happen tonight. I just know it will.”

“Aren’t you glad I was able to talk Aunt Donna into sticking to the rest of our plans for tomorrow?” Barry asked as they stepped into the kitchen after their parents. 

“Barry, you can just put that on the counter there, dear,” Moira told him, indicating to the space behind her. “And dinner should be ready in about twenty minutes, so you kids can go wait in the parlor with Robert if you want while Donna and I chat.”

Oliver and Felicity shared a look at her last words before turning and shuffling back out of the kitchen with Barry on their heels.

* * *

“That announcement Malcolm made at his son’s engagement party about the Palmers really seemed to take effect earlier this week,” Robert said about halfway through dinner. “Many of the employees who worked with Raymond at Palmer Tech have been flocking to QC and Kord Industries.”

Felicity nodded. She’d heard the same through the grapevine at work. “I heard,” she responded. “Mr. Martin and Dr. Loring are celebrating, but you didn’t hear that from me.” She and Robert shared a laugh as Moira finally gave up interrogating Oliver about Thea’s potential new boyfriend and focusing back onto Donna, Barry, and Felicity.

“You three are such a close knit family, Donna,” Moira observed with a smile. 

Donna looked across the table at Felicity and Barry with a smile of her own, happiness glittering in her eyes. “Oh, yes, we are,” she agreed. “I suppose we had to be, though. Felicity’s father had passed away when she was still a baby and then my sister and her husband died in a horrible car accident when Barry was nine. It was just the three of us after that.” A grin suddenly spread across her face as she let out a small laugh. “I think I made myself involved in their lives so many times when these two were growing up that they didn’t know what to do other than to let me in.”

“And you’d be right, Mom,” Felicity said with a laugh of her own. “When I went off to college and Barry was starting his final year of high school, he called me so many times just to let me know how angry he was that I’d left him alone with her.”

Her mother flashed him a smile. “But you love me anyway,” she cooed.

Barry grinned, ducking his head in embarrassment. “Yeah, I do, Aunt Donna.”

“Robert and I used to be just as close with Thea and Oliver when they were little, but then Oliver went off to college and Thea had her friends and they forgot all about Mom and Dad,” Moira said with a teasing smile directed to her son as Robert chuckled. 

He leaned back in his seat and grinned at his son. “It used to be a fight to get Oliver to come join us for an occasional family dinner,” he told Donna, “but then he met your lovely daughter and was over here almost every other night telling us all about her.”

“Oliver’s usually very tightlipped about the girls he’s interested in, but with Felicity he wouldn’t stop talking about her,” Moira added with a wide smile. “So much so that I had started to think she didn’t exist, but then I finally met her.” Her smile turned fond as she looked upon the young couple. “And I saw just exactly why my son was absolutely enamored with your daughter.”

Oliver’s cheeks turned a deep pink as he blushed and Felicity met his gaze with a soft smile. They’d had a rocky start, there was absolutely no denying that, but after they decided to start over with each other everything between them was absolutely perfect. There’d been the occasional fight between them of course and a few random encounters with girls from Oliver’s sordid past, but it hadn’t been anything that they couldn’t overcome. 

She reached out and clasped the hand that rested on the table between them tight in hers. “So you’re enamored with me, huh?” she softly teased him.

A smile broke out across his face and he nodded. “Yeah,” he murmured quietly, “I am.”

“Aww. You two are just so cute,” Donna cooed. “I bet when you get married one day, you’ll have that same look in your eyes you do now and everything will just be one big blur except for each other.” 

As her mother spoke, Moira had turned her gaze onto Felicity and Oliver, and Felicity swore she saw a glint of calculation in her eyes before it quickly disappeared. Oliver must have noticed too because his hand immediately tightened around hers. 

She leaned forward in her seat with a smile as she intently looked between them. “I know it’s a little early to be thinking about wedding bells, but I just know it will be beautiful when the time comes,” she was saying, completely oblivious to what they had just seen. “I’ll do the cake and—”

“Dessert!” Barry suddenly said, cutting her off and startling everyone. “I think it’s time for dessert.” He stood up from the table and stood behind Felicity and Oliver’s chairs, hands coming down to rest on their shoulders as he came to their rescue. “Felicity made those devil’s food cupcakes you like for your birthday, Aunt Donna. They’re in the kitchen, so I’m going to go get them.” He gently squeezed their tense shoulders, silently telling them to relax. “Be right back.”

Donna gasped excitedly, completely forgetting about the imaginary wedding she was planning for Felicity, and reached across the table to grasp her daughter’s hand. “The ones with the cream cheese filling topped with milk chocolate ganache that you’ll never tell me the recipe to?” When Felicity nodded she squealed, turning to Moira and Robert with a wide smile. “Oh, you two are in for a treat!”

Barry stepped back into the dining room a moment later with the container containing the cupcakes and carefully distributed them to everybody before sitting back down beside Felicity. 

“Thanks, Barry,” Oliver said quietly from her other side.

“You’re welcome,” he muttered out of the side of his mouth while Donna and Moira oohed and aahed over how cute the little confections were. “You two looked like you were about to have panic attacks.”

“Not for the reason you’re probably thinking,” Felicity whispered back. She forced a smile onto her face that gradually turned real. “Happy birthday, Mom!”

“Happy birthday, Aunt Donna,” Barry echoed with a smile of his own. “I hope this year’s better than the last.”

Donna met her children’s gazes and grinned, her eyes soft as she looked at them. “I know it will be.”


	31. Aftermath

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry about the delay, lovelies. Now let's get back to our regularly scheduled programing :D

“I changed my mind, Felicity,” Donna said the next morning. “I don't like your boyfriend.”

The kitchen in Felicity’s apartment turned quiet immediately following her words. She stilled at the counter, her hand hovering over the chopping board as she stopped cutting the peppers for the omelet she was supposed to be making. Felicity deliberately puts the knife down beside the chopping board before turning to face her mother. “What?” she asked, sure that she heard her wrong because there was no way she just said that.

Barry took one look at her face before quietly taking over the chopping after moving down the counter away from her. 

“Since Bear stopped me from asking my other questions, I had to find another way of seeing how serious he is about you, baby,” Donna explained from where she sat at the breakfast bar. “And Oliver acted very strange when I started talking about you two getting married last night. He looked like it was the very last thing that he wanted, Felicity.”

Felicity groaned, bringing her hand up to cover her face. She’d wondered why her mother had suddenly turned cold toward Oliver last night after dinner at the Queen’s, but she didn't think it was this! 

“Mom,” she sighed, one part exasperated and one part relieved, and crossed her small kitchen to stand across from her. “That had nothing to do with the wedding stuff and everything to do with his mother.”

Donna frowned in confusion, reaching across the counter in front of her to take her daughter’s hands in her own. “What do you mean, honey?” she asked softly.

“Moira’s been trying to convince us to get married and give her grandchildren since the day I first met her,” she told her. “She’s brought it up so many times that Oliver and I have already talked about marriage and weddings and stuff, even though we’ve only been dating for a few months, Mom.” Felicity sighed, dragging a hand through her hair as she thought back to last night. “When you started talking about a wedding between me and Oliver, Moira looked like she was about to start planning one now based on what you were saying even though we’re nowhere close to being engaged. And she kind of looked like she was going to try and recruit you to her cause.”

Shocked, her mother stared at her with wide eyes and her eyebrows had traveled so high up her forehead that they threatened to disappear into her hairline. “But you just started dating a few months ago and neither of you are ready to get married.”

Felicity nodded, dropping her head to rest on their clasped hands. “I know that and Oliver knows that and you know that, but Moira’s dead serious about getting us married. Like right now.”

“Oh, honey,” Donna murmured, gently running a hand through her daughter’s hair. “I might have made it worse didn’t I? I’m sorry. All I was trying to do was find out if Oliver was committed to you and your relationship unlike that Cooper boy you dated.”

She lifted her head and steadily met her mother’s gaze. “He’s very committed, Mom, much more than He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named ever was. And so am I.”

Her mother closely watched her for a moment before a small smile spread across her face. “Good. I thought I was going to have to somehow corner Oliver and put the fear of God into him if he wasn’t serious about my baby girl.”

* * *

Later that morning, Felicity and Barry slowly made their way through the various stalls of the open-air market set along the waterfront near downtown Starling while Donna wandered ahead of them, moving stall to stall and only stopping when she saw something that caught her eye. Visiting Starling City’s famed open-air market was always at the top of Donna’s to do list when she came to see Felicity. The last two times she had come to Starling a storm had hit the city and they were unable to go so Felicity and Barry thought it was the perfect place to spend the day with her.

“I still can’t believe you spent your vacation with Mom,” Felicity said to him when they stopped at a vendor selling handmade jewelry.

Barry held up two different pair of earrings for her to consider and she picked up a completely different pair from the table. “It wasn’t that bad, though,” he said with a shrug, buying the earrings she had chosen for his longtime girlfriend Iris. “She just had me help her at the bakery behind the counter and tried to embarrass me in front of her employees. I’d call that a successful vacation from my forensic work at the police department. Iris had to work all week anyway, since she was investigating some big story.”

They continued moving through the market, stopping once for Barry to buy an overpriced green smoothie. “So that little freak-out you guys had last night wasn’t about Aunt Donna’s choice in interrogation tactics?” he prompted.

Felicity shook her head, spotting her mother stopping to admire some silk scarves ahead of them. “No. Oliver’s mother has been trying to get us married since we started dating and we saw her get this look in her eye like she was about to start planning our wedding when Mom started talking about the imaginary one,” she told him. 

Her cousin stared at her in disbelief, his expression frighteningly identical to the one her mother had made when she told her earlier. “Well, at least you can't say your life's boring,” he said after he finally recovered, taking a sip of his smoothie. 

“Sometimes I wish it was, but then I don't think that would be my life,” she sighed. They walked in silence for a few moments before Felicity spoke again. “So what do you think of Oliver?”

Barry glanced at her out of the corner of his eye. “I like him for you, Felicity. He’s much better than that douchebag, What's-His-Face, you were dating last year. Oliver actually makes you happy—despite his wedding-crazy mother,” he said, sipping at the last of his smoothie. “As long as he treats you well and doesn't break your heart or something, he’s good. Hypothetically – not that I think this would ever happen since he looks at you like you hung the moon – if Oliver were to hurt you, I'd just find a way to frame him for murder since I don't think I could take him in a fight. I'd just leave that part to Sara like last time anyway.”

The corners of her mouth lifted up into a small smile at his words. “Thanks, Bartholomew,” she told him. 

“No problem, Felicity,” he said with a dimpled grin, slinging an arm over her shoulders as they finally caught up with Donna. “And don't ever call me that again unless you want me to resurrect those pictures of you from your goth phase in college and show them to Oliver.”


	32. Trouble with a Side of Cake

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Oh, look! An update!

Felicity followed Sara and Laurel into the little high end bakery in Laurel and Tommy’s neighborhood a few weeks after her mother’s birthday. This was the first of the three cake tastings Laurel had scheduled. She didn't understand why there needed to be any more than one or two tastings, but Laurel had insisted, claiming that she wanted to taste every option available so that she could eliminate all the flavors that she didn’t like before coming back the second time with Tommy so that he could do the same until they found the flavor that they would settle on at the final tasting. It was excessive in Felicity’s opinion, but this wasn’t her wedding so who was she to judge?

The man who ran the bakery came striding out of the kitchen dressed in an apron that was a little too clean for someone who claimed to do most of the baking himself a moment after Laurel had greeted the older woman who stood behind the counter. He quietly greeted Laurel and while they conversed, Sara turned to look at Felicity.

“Tommy finally got rid of his nutso secretary,” she told her with a satisfied grin.

Felicity eyed her suspiciously, a bemused smile tugging at her mouth. “What did you do?”

Sara’s grin widened, blue eyes darting in her older sister’s direction to make sure she was still preoccupied. “I just told Tommy that one day I was going to drop in unexpectedly by his office and if I saw that crazy bitch was still working for him, I was going to make him wish he'd never met me. And the next thing I know he texts me to let me know that he’s got a new secretary. His name’s Axel.”

Felicity just shook her head, unsurprised. That sounded exactly like something she would do. “At least he wasn't dumb enough to hire some young girl with you breathing down his neck,” she commented.

“Damn straight,” Sara agreed with a wolfish grin.

“So how are things with Leonard since that little date you guys had?” she asked, thinking back to the lunch the three of them had that ended in Leonard asking a blushing Sara out.

Predictably, a soft pink blush and a small smile spread across her best friend’s face at the mention of him. “Things are good,” she practically sighed dreamily. “We’ve gone on a few dates since that one and we talk nearly every day about everything and nothing. He took me dancing the other night after dinner and did you know that he knows how to ballroom dance?” Sara asked with an excited grin.

Felicity nodded with a smile of her own, finding this softer side of her friend to be absolutely adorable. “I did – Barry used to tease him about it all the time. If you end up asking him to go to Laurel’s wedding with you, then you won’t need to attend those dancing lessons she’s trying to force you into since he’ll just give you private ones,” she teased her.

“Guys,” Laurel called out before Sara could respond. She waved for them to join her and the baker. “Come on.”

They followed them into a small room at the back of the bakery where a table with three chairs was waiting for them beneath a large picture window that overlooked the large park across the street. The three women sat down and once they had settled in the baker returned with a small miniature cake that he gently placed before them. He handed each of them a fork and began to explain to them what it was.

“This is my specialty cake,” he began with an expectant smile directed to the bride-to-be. “Most of the weddings that I’ve done in the past year have chosen this one simply because none of the other bakeries in the city offer it.”

Laurel moved to cut into the confection, already eager to taste it. “So what is it?”

“This is a rich chocolate cake with a light and fluffy peanut butter frosting,” the baker told her.

“Take it away,” she ordered harshly as she pushed the cake away from them as far as she could without flipping the plate onto the floor, effectively wiping the smile clean off his face and replacing it with an angry scowl.

“But you haven’t even tasted it!” he protested indignantly.

Laurel stared up at him with a hard glare. “And I don’t have to in order to know that I don’t want it. Do you know why?” she asked coldly.

The baker visibly swallowed and shook his head. “No,” he stuttered out.

“Because my bridesmaid is allergic to peanuts – which you would have known if you had bothered to pay attention to any of the things I was telling you during our very first conversation,” Laurel angrily berated the man.

Horror colored his features, eyes widening as he looked between her and Sara. “ _Oh, my God._ I am _so_ sorry,” he apologized, immediately snatching the plate from the table before practically running out of the room without so much as a backwards glance.

Once he was gone, Laurel turned to look at Felicity, concern written all over her face. “Are you okay?” she asked. “I’m sorry, Felicity. I made sure to tell that asshole when I made the appointment about your allergy, but apparently he wasn’t listening.”

Felicity offered her a reassuring smile. “I’m fine, Laurel, promise,” she told her. “I have my epipen with me just in case, if that makes you feel any better.”

Sara leaned around her to look at her sister and patted her crossbody bag. “And I have one for her, too, sis.”

Laurel nodded before standing. “Let’s go,” she sighed. “I’m not letting these incompetent people make my wedding cake.” Felicity and Sara followed her out of the bakery and onto the sidewalk, ignoring the baker as he begged them to stay.

Sara turned to Laurel, reaching out to reassuringly squeeze her upper arm, as Felicity fished out her rapidly buzzing phone as message after message came in. “It’ll be okay, Laurel. I’m pretty sure there are better bakeries in the city that will treat you way better than this one. Maybe Felicity can find you one since she knows her way around these places. Right, Smoak?” When she got no response, both Lance sisters turned to look at her. “Smoak?” she repeated.

“What?” Felicity asked distractedly, fingers flying across the screen of her phone as she frantically typed out a response. “Yeah. Yeah, I can do that, Laurel. No problem.”

“Is everything okay, Felicity?”

Felicity hit send on her last text before dropping her phone back into her purse. “Um, no. Not really. Something’s happened and I’ve got to go,” she told them, fully aware that she looked just a little frazzled. “I’ll text you details about a bakery soon, Laurel, and I’ll call you later, Sara. Bye, guys.” And she quickly speed walked down the sidewalk in her high heels to her car and practically dived into the driver’s seat before driving away.

**Author's Note:**

> Find me on Tumblr [here](http://angelqueen87.tumblr.com).


End file.
